Dark Side of the Moon: a Logan and Rogue Remix
by thatcraftykid
Summary: X-Men: The Movie. Same premise, different consequences owing to a mutant treatment facility called Southaven and a focus on the chemistry between Logan and Rogue.
1. Money, chapter 1

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track one / "MONEY"**

**MONEY, IT'S A GAS / GRAB THAT CASH WITH BOTH HANDS AND MAKE A STASH**

"_Oh, you hush." She turns her glare on the unconscious_

_heap laid out across the seat. "Lucky for me, I am invincible."_

– _Rogue –_

Too anxious to get down from the cab and Rogue stumbles, worn shoes sliding past the metal step, toes landing on iced-over concrete. The door swings wide, pulling the weight of her body and her duffel bag with it. She rests her forehead against her gloved hand, still clutching the handle.

Nearly cross-eyed, she glares through the blotchy buzz until she can clearly see her breath coming out in puffs of condensation. Her taut skin settles into the pinprick sensation she's more or less gotten used to. Five Mississippi Rivers, and she straightens.

She blinks rapidly, against the snow and the scenery. A handful of people paying her no mind. A dozen or so beat up pickup trucks. A dilapidated structure that looks half made out of aluminum. Beyond that, arctic tundra.

"This is Laughlin City," Rogue intones.

_Moron child don't know a destination from a hole-in-a-wall. Sure, hitchhike 'cross Canada, eh? Why not. I could be anybody, takin' her any place. She don't know. Hell, all these fuckin' kids today think they're invincible – _

"Oh, you hush." She turns her glare on the unconscious heap laid out across the seat. "Lucky for me, I am invincible."

His head lolls and gravity wins out. She tilts her chin, scrunching her face as his cheek smashes against the dirty floor.

"Not so lucky for you, I might need to know how to drive a semi someday."

Dropping her bag to the snow, she climbs back into the cab enough to yank his bulk onto the seat. As she's arranging him into a more comfortable position – he'll be sleeping well through the night, by her careful estimation, and waking up not knowing what hit him – the wallet sticking out of his back pocket catches her eye.

Rogue's nimble fingers have the wallet picked and contents counted before her conscience can interject. _That ain't Christian, chickadee_, it reprimands in her momma's voice. Her mother lost her footing on the moral high ground eight months ago, but Rogue still pauses.

Seventy-two Canadian dollars. Blindsided victim.

Moral quandary.

His drool collects on the seat. He bought her lunch, and this is how she thanks him.

"Damn," she bites off, snapping shut the wallet and shoving it back into his pocket. "You waste that money on a hooker with a bad tit-job instead of putting it toward next month's alimony payment, so help me."

_My ex put out honest like a hooker 'stead of givin' it away for free to every man 'cept me, I'd consider payin' her on time._

"Charming. You know, I cannot afford to be such a soft touch, especially not to misogynists. In fact." Rogue pops open the glove box with her fist. "Keep your money. I'm going to pawn your gun." She checks the ammo and safety with the familiarity of an Air Force captain. "You're a lousy shot anyway," she tells him, slipping the cool metal into the inside pocket of her voluminous cloak.

She gets down from the cab a final time and presses down the lock.

"Well, Patrick Lee Guff, lifetime resident of Calgary, antiques aficionado, and fly-fishing tournament champion '85, '86, '87 and '91 – quite a comeback – I appreciate the ride, and I appreciate the gun. Sleep well, and, uh, thanks for all the memories."

With that, Rogue slams the door shut, picks up her duffel bag, and marches through the snow and into the next in the series of poorly thought-out decisions that have come to define her miserable excuse for a life.

And how, she thinks to herself as she edges her way into the bar, which seems to be lit by trashcan fire. Warm, yes. Cheap, yes. Intelligent, no. The siding might be aluminum but the rest of the place is little more than plywood.

There are far more bodies inside than the parking lot suggested. Their voices are rough, excited. Rogue shrinks back inside her hood. The crowd surrounds a large cage, where three figures are silhouetted by a thick haze of smoke. A boxing bell dings. Her gaze follows a body as he's dragged out of the cage by his armpits. The crowd boos, evidently on the fallen man's side.

She's never seen a cage fight before, but Guff's seen plenty. _Blood sport_, she thinks with his distaste. But profitable, she adds, remembering their buddy Al hitting pay dirt two summers ago in this very bar. Owner's an old hunting buddy of Al's. _Rough clientele, damn fine whiskey_.

"Gentlemen!" the announcer yells, and she has to sneer a little at the irony. "In all my years, I've never seen anything like this. Are you going to let this man walk away with your money?"

The man in question is all sleek definition and muscle tone, like a Roman statue with wild dark hair and a shiny belt. He has his bare back to Rogue, though by his stance she can tell his last competitor was less than a challenge. She stretches her fingers inside her thin gloves, knuckles cracking audibly.

"I'll fight him!" a bald-headed behemoth cries from the bleachers.

Her arms droop. So disappointing. Rogue is confident she can take down anybody, and Statue's naked torso intimidation ploy would've made for a record-breaking knockout. Along with, if Al is any indication, enough cash to get her to Anchorage in style.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our savior!" the announcer cries.

Nothing generates gambling better than theatrics. A girl her age would never be allowed in that cage. But a little mutant girl? If she knows rednecks – and she does, firsthand – a lot of them would empty their wallets and more to witness that particular brand of Jim Crow justice.

Too bad money is worth a hell of lot less to her than anonymity, even if she has gotten herself into such a sorry state that money equals food. She's been careless with what she's stolen. An upper middleclass upbringing is to blame. Feast or famine; she's yet to figure out the in-between.

The bell dings again, signaling the beginning of the fight for what would be her winnings if the world was an even slightly fairer place. But fair play is dead, and Behemoth proves it by opening with a kick to the back and two successive punches.

Statue falls hard on his knees, and she half expects to hear a sound like shattered clay. The cage rattles as Behemoth repeatedly kicks him against the unrelenting metal. The crowd cheers.

Rogue watches grimly. She's come to the conclusion that, one way or another, the winner is her next meal ticket, and Behemoth isn't the better target of the two. He's a townie, no doubt, and she needs a ride.

Get up, she wills Statue. Kick his ass.

Behemoth steps back.

Distinctly, she hears, "You idiot!" Someone's been watching this fighter long enough to know that he may be down, but he's not out. His fist comes up, making a brutal sound against Behemoth's knuckles.

Her eyes gleam. The cage fighter's aquiline nose and abdominal definition may be Romanesque, but he's no statue. He is flesh, barely restrained. She knows something about that.

_Blood sport_, Guff whispers in her mind again. _All of them boys is animals. _

One good swing, and Behemoth bounces off the metal cage. He finishes Behemoth off with little more than a twitch of his neck.

Snarling, he loosens his shoulders. Eyes scan the crowd. A silver chain and dog tag flash under the glare of the lights. She raises her hand to the tags she's worn around her own neck for going on two months.

The soldier gives Behemoth a farewell kick for good measure.

"Winner and still King of the Cage, the Wolverine!"

The boos are louder this time. He stalks to the side of the cage, where he lights a cigar and resumes his earlier pose.

Her lips stick as they part to allow her to take a steadying breath.

_Animals._ Wolverine.

* * *

The announcer calls for another challenger but no one speaks up, so the crowd begins to stand and reach behind them for their coats. The theatricality is lost. The King of the Cage has proven unbeatable.

Rogue slinks back. Doubt settles in, agitating her. She takes a perch on an empty bar stool and rests her feet on her duffel bag. She asks for a glass of water, the only thing in her life she can ever get for free.

Her plan for stealing the money is half-cocked, like everything she does. With this kind of crowd, Guff tells her the winnings could be a grand or more. Enticing, but it puts things into grim perspective. No one breaks out the dogs for twenty, fifty bucks here and there. But anything approaching four figures could get her into serious trouble.

_And that man is Trouble with a capital T_, her momma warns.

Rogue tosses back her water like whiskey. Guff doesn't want anyone thinking she's soft.

It isn't the man she's worried about, not really. It's the possibility of the hunt. _Animal_. Soldier. Wolverine might track her down, turn her in – strip her of her hard-won anonymity. She'll starve before she gets taken back to Mississippi again. She'll lay down and die.

Fear makes her weak, and the dark takes advantage, pulls her in. For an indefinite period of time, she's aware of blinking but not seeing. She breathes, but she can't think beyond the mantra she's adopted. To the beat of a heart monitor: Me. Awake. Aware. Me.

With a slow shudder she pulls herself out of the dark.

She clenches and unclenches her jaw, upset with herself. She's more susceptible to what she thinks of as her coma-narcolepsy just after she absorbs someone, especially if she makes the mistake of letting herself think of the clinic.

_Too arrogant by half_, Guff warns her. He's not wrong, but she's not happy to hear his opinion. She blames him, anyway. His personality is so easy to handle, it's no wonder she got lulled off her guard.

Well, not again. No more just-in-case borrowings, and no more thousand-dollar fantasies. Stick to the small stuff, she tells herself, eyeing the jar full of singles and change in front of her.

"Want somethin' new, honey?" The owner's stare is none too friendly. "Or you stickin' with water?" He slides the tip jar out of her reach.

She doesn't respond. The man's name is Ed Baylor, and he's missing the pinkie toe of his right foot. Over a beer, he'd told Guff it was from frostbite, but Al told him later Ed'd accidentally shot it off himself on a hunting trip. His wife's name is Leah, and he has a grown-up daughter named Marie. Rogue wonders if the coincidence is enough to wheedle him out of a bowl of peanuts.

Ed turns away before she can bring it up. It's late now and the place is almost empty, but Wolverine takes a seat at the end of the bar. He could have left already, she wouldn't have known. Story of her life. Always reflecting when she should be acting, always acting when she should be reflecting.

"I'll have a beer."

She expects his voice to be deep but not so low. The King of the Cage all but murmured, and that tells Rogue everything she thinks she needs to know – he doesn't like attention, either. He's like her, an outsider. Her resolve quickly vanishes. He'll be all right to steal from.

Rogue is grateful. She almost smiles, watching him drink his beer out of the corner of her eye. He catches her. She demurs, but can't help but look back when she sees him pick up his change from the bar. Is that part of his winnings? Has he gotten it yet?

He's not pleased with her staring, but it honestly doesn't matter at this point. They're rapidly becoming the only people in the bar, so he'd notice her anyway.

If he looked a little more inviting, she'd slip off her coat, flash him some teeth. He'd pick her up, take her to a motel. She'd knock him out with a touch, enjoy a warm bed for a few hours, then head out with money in hand.

A good con in theory, and the only time she'd tried it it'd worked right up until the very last part. For fifteen measly bucks, pervert Gordy Neville rented a permanent space inside her head. After him, Rogue likes to think she's become more discerning, but fear of ignorant mistakes and a half-realized search for something to fill the dark keeps her borrowing far more than she needs.

Wolverine glares at her. Rogue pretends to watch the television she's just realized is on.

"The leaders of over two hundred nations will gather to discuss issues ranging from the world's economic climate and weapons treaties to the mutant phenomenon…"

His eyes dart to the TV for the first time.

"…and its impact on our world's stage."

Mutant is a trigger-word for him as well, she suspects. Whether out of hate or affiliation she tries to deduce from his expression. His eyes are half lidded behind cigar smoke, but she decides it's the latter. Not wishful thinking. Recognition.

It's been a long time since Rogue has seen another mutant. She wants to run over to him, grab him by his leather jacket, shake him with the strength that isn't her own. She wants to yell in his face, "Listen to what they did to me!" because someone's got to. Someone's got to look her in the eye and tell her no one deserves Southaven, no matter how dangerously unnatural.

But he has more pressing concerns. Behemoth approaches, taps him on the shoulder. "You owe me some money."

"Come on, Stew, let's not do this."

Behemoth Stew waves off his friend's words of caution. "No man takes a beating like that without a mark to show for it."

"Come on, buddy, this isn't going to be worth it," the friend says, voicing her opinion.

Coming forward, Behemoth Stew leans in close. Whispers, "I know what you are."

A thrill shudders through her. Recognition again, along with fear. That was all it took in Los Angeles. One sharp-eyed nun who thought a mutant runaway worth reporting.

Wolverine doesn't miss a beat. "You lost your money. You keep this up, you lose somethin' else."

The friend ushers Behemoth Stew back, but cooler heads don't prevail. Light glints off steel.

"Look out!"

She blinks, and Wolverine has Behemoth Stew pinned to the wall with the two huge metal knives jutting from his knuckles. A hint of a middle blade makes its way toward Behemoth Stew's jugular.

Ed rests the barrel of his shotgun against Wolverine's ear. "Get out of my bar, freak."

"Don't point that at him!"

Rogue brings her stolen handgun up steady, even as her stomach drops out. All are eyes are on her.

So much for anonymity.


	2. Money, chapter 2

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track one / "MONEY"**

**MONEY, IT'S A CRIME / SHARE IT FAIRLY BUT DON'T TAKE A PIECE OF MY PIE**

"_Don't thank me, kid, I don't want the fuckin' hassle. Just take the money_

_and get the hell outta here. You're in way over your head."_

– _Logan –_

Logan thinks he's seen everything now.

The girl's skittish and absurdly young, and she's got her gun pointed two inches from any place useful. Still, her clipped drawl is all business. "Gun to the floor. Slow."

Bartender does as she says, and Logan turns to coax him back on his feet with his second set of claws. Somewhere to his far right, a door shuts. Guy sweeping the cage has hightailed it out of there, and Logan doesn't blame him. He keeps his eyes on the girl, the unknown entity.

"What d'you think you're doing, kid?"

Her chin comes up and her brow moves in. "Saving your life."

"No, you're not."

He'd laugh at the affronted expression on her face, but he's too annoyed. A flip of his wrist and he would've sliced that shotgun in half. He'd have taught them a permanent lesson, maybe, or else he would've left, no fuss. Now he has the world's most fucked up Mexican standoff on his hands, on account of some lunatic little girl who doesn't know what the hell she's getting herself into.

Her aim suddenly improves. The gun is pointed directly between his eyes. "Fine. Then I'm not saving your life."

"What the hell are you doing?" he asks again, this time a lot more loudly and at lot less patiently.

"You could've been grateful, then I would've been nicer about all this. But…" She shrugs regretfully, daintily. "I want the money."

Damn the money, he couldn't give two shits. Logan is beyond annoyed. He's working his way to angry. "Take a breath and drop the gun, kid. You're done playin' around." He punctuates his order by pointing his left set of claws at her.

She shakes her head. "Mine's worse."

It's probably supposed to be a threat, but her confession only serves to calm him down a fraction. Situation's controllable, because the girl's not crazy. Just a stupid-as-hell mutant who picked the wrong guy to identify with.

"All right. Look." He nods toward the table where the blonde with the wandering hands and her old man are frozen in the act of counting up the night's profit.

For half a second, she's obviously thrown. He'd bet his cabin that she hadn't seen them there before.

Big, brown eyes settle on his like a plea, then she turns the gun on the couple. "Hands where I can see 'em, Beer Belly. I Love the Eighties – money in the bag. All of it." Blonde doesn't move until the girl shouts, "Now!"

Her pitch is so high, it takes Logan a beat to hear the bartender diving for the shotgun and react. Bartender brings up two halves. The only sound in the place is the hiss of gun powder falling to the floor and the bartender's shaky gasps. Then a drawn-out moan and a thud as the big-ass redneck who'd kicked him repeatedly in the balls and then demanded fair retribution topples to the floor in a dead faint.

"Thanks," the girl breathes, a little shell-shocked. Her gun's pointed at the fallen redneck. She moves it back to the couple.

"Don't thank me, kid, I don't want the fuckin' hassle. Just take the money and get the hell outta here. You're in way over your head."

The girl barks out a laugh. "Been that way for a long time, sugar," she drawls.

"You're not doin' yourself any favors here."

"Never can seem too."

She's got to be older than she looks, he suddenly thinks, because her arch bitterness hits him where he lives. Ain't it the truth? he could tell her. Instead, he scowls harder. He means what he said – he doesn't want the hassle.

"Eighties, money," she prompts.

Blonde looks to Logan. Claws top gun, strange world. He motions her on with a sharp incline of his head. She stands shakily, picking up the fake leather bag. She makes it three wobbly steps on her too-high heels before her knees give out.

"Toss the bag over here," the girl demands.

Her best effort makes it little more than halfway.

"How much, Big B?"

"Tw-twenty-two hundred," he stammers.

Her lips twist into something like a smile. "Good." Gun up, she reaches down and slings what looks to Logan like an army duffel over her shoulder and walks over to pick up the money. She holds the bag up by one handle. "I'll pay you for a ride," she offers.

That level of audacity renders him speechless. He settles for his most disgusted stare.

She waves the gun. "I could just take your car."

Speaking of cars.

Hairs raise on the back of Logan's neck. He swivels around, and the redneck's friend stumbles back with his hands stretched out. Logan glares past him, toward the back door. The sound is faint, still pretty far out depending on the wind, but it's unmistakable.

"What's he doing? What's wrong?"

What's wrong? He turns back to the girl. "Shut up. You're a stupid kid."

"I am not – "

"You hear that yet? Sirens. While you been standin' around jawin', janitor called the police. You don't have five minutes."

Even in the orange glow, the girl looks sheet white. Her eyes glaze over.

Logan draws his claws back in, earning a wince from the bartender. He rolls his shoulder to loosen it up, and the bartender falls back on his ass. Logan gets a tiny amount of satisfaction out of that, but it doesn't begin to make up for the world of aggravation one slip of a mutant has brought down around his head.

The gun is pointed at him again, but she can unload the thing for all he cares. He's out of there. Up close, she looks older again, like a dead woman standing, though he refuses to feel sorry for her.

"Best of luck in juvie," he says, dismissing her even as he walks by.

He's held up suddenly by his elbow. Her gloved hand is trembling, but it's stronger than he thinks possible.

"I'm a mutant," she says.

Like it matters.

Her eyes shine green, startling him. Tears gather on her bottom lids as her face contorts in bitter anguish. "They don't have any right to do what they did to me, and I am not going back."

Logan jerks his arm away. He'd prefer a bullet in his gut to the sickening twist he feels. Ain't it the truth? he could almost say again, except he's always thought deep down that whatever his they did to him, he might've deserved.

"Help me."

He clamps his arm around her shoulder, shoving her in front of him. "Move your ass."

* * *

The sirens are louder outside, of course, but they don't sound like they're getting any closer. Confusion slows him down. The girl tugs at his jacket, and he grabs her wrist before she can do any damage. Leather's probably older than she is.

"Come on!" Terror rolls off her.

"There're two cop cars out there, and they've both stopped up the way."

"Good! Which car is yours?"

He sniffs the air. Something else doesn't smell right.

"Wolverine!"

"Blue and white pickup, with the camper."

She slips out of his grasp and runs toward it. If she feels safer standing next to it, she's welcome to, but she'll just have to wait. The cop cars have stopped dead, no question, and Logan's drawing the conclusion that something else did the stopping. He listens hard. Gunfire. A – roar?

He loses the far-fetched notion to an engine turning over. The taillights of his own pickup glow red. His hand goes to the pocket of his jeans to feel his keys. The fuck?

A whiff of something sharp and metallic hits his nose. Blood, not human.

His pickup swings around and skids to halt in front of him. The girl reaches across his seat to push open the passenger door. All he can smell now is gasoline and fear.

"Get in."

She settles back into driver's seat, buckling the seatbelt in one fluid motion.

"No way you're driving my – "

"Get in already!"

She yanks the shift. Logan hardly has time to step in before she floors the gas, the passenger side door nearly slamming closed on his fingers. His indignation is nothing to his anger when he sees the exposed wires hanging near her knees.

"You hotwired my truck!"

"So bill me!" she retorts, pumping the wheel to the right to keep from sliding into the back of a parked semi.

"Watch my – " A terrible thought has him sticking his shoulders out of the door. "That's my damn chopper you unhitched!" he bellows. He just bought the damn thing. 1977 XS 650, all original parts. For christ's sake, he hasn't taken it out for more than a test drive.

A tug on his belt sees his head back inside the cab just in time to avoid braining himself against the side of a building.

"It would've slowed us down. If you want it that badly, take a flying leap. Otherwise, sit back."

White lights go off behind his eyelids. He's actually seeing stars, he's so fucking furious. He fights against his claws. They slice through his sore knuckles before he can will them back behind his skin.

Logan's breathing is heavy. The girl's is shaky.

She seems content to finally shut the fuck up, and it's a long time before he can bring himself to speak to her.

"You got a plan?"

The girl wets her lips. "Keep down this road, and we can get onto the highway."

"What makes you say that?" He hasn't seen any signs.

Her lip quirks, only slightly. "Trucker told me. I'm heading – " She hesitates, poses her direction as a question to him, "West?"

"West," he allows roughly. Little under four hundred kilometers that direction, and they'd be in High Level. He'll let her off there and circle back to his cabin. Peace and solitude. At this point, fucking deserved.

He considers telling her to pull over, despite the fact that he's bone-tired. From stress, no doubt, as opposed to a solid week of bar hopping and cage fighting.

She beats him to it with a yawn. "If you want to drive now…"

"Nope." Logan tosses her duffel and the money into the camper behind him and settles into his seat, stretching his cramped legs as far as he can and crossing his arms over his chest. "You can handle it, kid."

"Sure, of course," she says quickly. "Not a problem."

He snorts softly at her sudden change of attitude. Better, he thinks, and closes his eyes. Practically meek.

"It's Rogue, though. Not 'kid.'"

Practically.

"No talking."

"Right," she whispers.

Logan growls lowly. He thinks he hears a suppressed laugh, but he chooses to ignore it in favor of silence.

Rest is what he needs – how long's it been? – but there's no getting that smell out of head.

Not human, but nothing like a dog. Cougar's closer, but who ever heard of a cougar at this altitude, this close to civilization? More the point, who ever heard of a cougar attacking a couple of cop cars on their way to break up an armed robbery?

Too convenient. Had to be related. "They" and the way she said it sticks in his mind. They're looking for her, undoubtedly. Had they found her?

Opening his eyes a crack, he studies the girl who calls herself Rogue. Too slim under that coat, he'd wager. Could be why she looks so young. Straight brown hair wisps out past her hood. Her cheekbones suggest she's older, he thinks. Lips, too, even pressed together tight like that. He could swear her eyes are brown again.

A car whizzes by, and she relaxes her grip on the steering wheel ever so slightly. Her posture remains rigid. He immediately pegged her as skittish, and first impressions don't lie.

What'd they do to her? Who are they?

It bothers him that he's curious. He doesn't give a shit about the details of other people's pasts. The only past he cares about is his own. If he can survive fifteen damn years with that a mystery, he can certainly let Miss Rogue suffer in blessed silence.

The sting of salt hits his nostrils. Logan shuts his eyes, never expecting to fall asleep.


	3. Money, chapter 3

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track one / "MONEY"**

**MONEY, IT'S A HIT / DON'T GIVE ME THAT DO-GOODY GOOD BULLSHIT**

"_Okay, so I don't live by the Girl Scout Law. I'm a thief and a liar – _

_but, far as I can tell, you beat people up for a living so no lectures, please."_

– _Rogue –_

Rogue checks the rearview mirror again. It's been light out for over an hour now, so the police car three lengths behind her stands out against the snowy backdrop. Longest seven minutes of her life, she's been watching that car. Just waiting.

The cop picks up speed. She wants to do the same – an out and out chase might be kinder to her nervous system. The suspense is hogtying her stomach something awful.

_Wait for the sirens_, a bell-like voice cautions her. A ghost from the dark. Maybe it's an omen.

Rogue shudders.

Miraculously, the cop passes her without so much as a sidelong glance. She can almost make out the driver. He or she, hard to tell, is big and blonde. If she sees another police car with a big blonde driving, she'll know she's in trouble. For now, she breathes.

"Jesus fucking goddamned Christ," Rogue can't help but say aloud, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Slumped over in the seat beside her, Wolverine snuffles and opens his eyes. For a split-second, she's sure he doesn't know who she is. Then a look of pure irritation settles on his features, and Rogue knows he's remembered.

"Got one helluva mouth on you for a girl," he says hoarsely, rubbing both hands over his face.

"A cop car just passed us. I might throw up."

The comical alarm on Wolverine's face is heightened by his mutton chops, which are sticking out in swirled patches. "Pull over."

Rogue has an iron stomach, but she stops anyway. It's been a long, anxious night. She's sick of driving. Once she has the truck in park, Wolverine looks like he wants to shove her out the driver side door.

"Just an expression," she assures him, letting the back of her head rest against the seat. She tugs at her purple scarf. "They've got to have an APB out on me. I'm shocked I didn't get pulled over. Shocked. I wanted to get as far on the highway as possible, but I figured I'd have to turn off onto some side road eventually. When I saw hardly any cars…Stupid. Again."

Rogue lets her chin drop so she can see him past her hood. Wolverine's head is resting against the seat, too, but he's looking forward. He finishes smoothing down his beard and rubs his knuckles with his long fingers. For the rough and tumble sort, he's got enviable eyelashes.

"I should've gotten off the highway earlier. Sorry."

"It's your blood pressure."

"No roadblocks, so they probably haven't thought to consult anyone stateside about me. There's a bright side for you."

"Criminal record."

"Believe it or not, that was my first holdup. Scout's honor." Rogue puts down her three fingers at his skeptical bow. "Okay, so I don't live by the Girl Scout Law. I'm a thief and a liar – but, far as I can tell, you beat people up for a living so no lectures, please."

Logan snorts, clearly not impressed. "You're worried about a missing persons."

"That's the one."

"Parents."

His way of asking questions via presumptive statements does not make her want to open up. "Private party," she replies, her tone final.

Wolverine turns his head to look at her now and finally asks a real question: "Does this private party use mutant trackers?"

Left field, much? "No way. They hate mutants. That's the point."

"So then they wouldn't have anything against exploitation."

"They hate us most of all because they can't control us. Southaven's a clinic. They…run tests. Try to figure out how we work. 'Know thine enemy' bullshit."

"Mm." He sits up, apparently finished.

"Why would you ask me that?"

"I'll drive. Hop out."

"Can't. I broke the door to get in. Why would you ask me about a mutant tracker?"

"What d'you mean, broke the door? How'd you get it shut?"

"I pulled real hard." She unbuckles herself and turns to face him, arms across her chest. "Mutant tracker?"

He sighs. "Something stopped those two cop cars last night. Am I driving or what?"

"Switch me spots." She waits for him to grudgingly half-stand, knees resting on the seat, so she can scoot down the bench, almost on her back. Right as she's passing under the arch he's made with his body, she stops to look up at him through his arms. "You were making a point."

"Point is, we got away, 'cause somethin' stopped those cops from doing their job. Somethin' that didn't smell human."

"What, like a bear?"

"You got a trained bear standin' by in the woods in case you get into trouble? This isn't exactly a comfortable position, kid."

He does look cramped. Also, she's close enough to bop his belt buckle with the tip of her nose. She refrains – he's annoyed with her enough as is, excessive goading not required – and slithers the rest of the way down the bench.

As he's taking his seat, she slides back her hood. "I'm Rogue," she reminds him.

"You mentioned that." He opens the ashtray and takes out a cigar.

He leans forward and she sees his dog tag. Familiarity bubbles up again.

"You were in the army?" No response. "Doesn't that mean you were in the army?"

Wolverine tucks the tag back under his shirts, scowling.

"You are easily upset. It's a character flaw."

That elicits a snort, a fleeting hint of a smile. "I got plenty more of those where that one came from," he tells her, putting the cigar between his teeth. "Good thing I'm dropping you off at the nearest bus station."

The lighter pops out, and he holds it up to the end of his cigar. A couple of puffs and then a long, satisfied drag. He contemplates it like a favorite lover. She almost tells him to get a room, but a clarification is more pressing.

"I get to keep the money, though, right?"

A flash of anger. "Yes. You get to keep the damn money." He puts the truck into drive and starts them back down the highway.

Rogue smiles smugly as she buckles her seatbelt. "Don't mind if I do. How about you drop me off at a really shady used car dealership instead?"

"There ain't but one dealership where you're gettin' off, and it's not cheap. Welcome to Northern Canada."

"Never mind. I wouldn't want to spend all my hard-earned money in one place."

He grunts around his cigar but doesn't deny it's hers.

Glad that's settled, she looks behind her to gaze fondly at the bag. His tiny, messy camper strikes her again. "Wow."

"What?"

"Nothing," she says quickly. "Just, suddenly my life doesn't look that bad."

"What'd you tell me? 'Take a flying leap.'"

Technically speaking, she very well could, but he doesn't know that.

"It looks great," she amends. Rogue looks down with a sideways smile. "Looks cozy." She glances up again.

He blows out a puff of smoke, focus on the road.

Her stomach gargles. Pots and pans…"You wouldn't have anything to eat back there?"

"Nothin', unless there's somethin' in the glove box." He leans over and reaches past the gun she stashed in there to pull out a package of beef jerky, which he tosses in her lap.

With her teeth, she pulls off her long, thin gloves so she can open the wrapping. She devours the piece of jerky in under fifteen seconds, barely remembering to chew with her mouth closed. Far from a hearty meal, but better than saliva. Anyway, she's a rich woman now. Before Wolverine sends her off into the wild blue yonder, maybe she can talk him into lunch, her treat.

Rogue rubs her bare hands for warmth. Character flaws notwithstanding, she likes the King of the Cage. She could take a little part of him with her, of course, but something tells her, of all the indignities she's put him through, that's the one he'd consider unforgivable.

"Put your hands on the heater."

She jerks away just in time, pressing her shoulder against the door.

Wolverine looks truly offended. "Now you think I'm gonna hurt you, kid?"

"It's nothing personal," Rogue says as she puts her gloves back on. "When people touch my skin, something happens."

"What?"

Level stare. "They get hurt."

"Fair enough."

She watches his hand come down to rest on the steering wheel. His knuckles look chapped, otherwise unbroken. "When they come out – does it hurt?"

"Every time."

No mutation is perfect. She likes having that knowledge reinforced. Makes her feel a little less alone.

* * *

"So, what kind of a name is 'Rogue?'"

"I don't know. What kind of a name is 'Wolverine?'"

"My name's Logan."

"Marie."

For some reason, this time her sass earns her a half a smirk. But when she tries to give him legitimate advice – "You know, you should really wear your seatbelt" – she gets a cigar pointed in her face.

"Look, I'm not about to take advice on auto safety from some girl – "

An alarming crunch, a sudden stop. She's wrenched forward. Glass shatters.

Through her hair, she can see her legs. She tugs at them. Stuck, not crushed. Her neck hurts, her stomach where the lapbelt is pulled tight. Her heart beats in her ears. Most of the windshield is blown out.

Logan is out in the snow, staggering sideways like a miracle drunk. He stops a few feet from her to catch his balance. "You all right?"

There's a huge gash on his forehead, revealing steel-gray instead of bone-white. She watches with jealous fascination as it disappears. Her skin feels like it's reaching out.

"Kid, are you all right?"

Coming to herself again, she breaks the seatbelt from its metal clamp and holds it up as proof of her last remark. "I'm fine."

With his arm, Logan wipes the blood from his wound-free face and comes toward her again as she's opening the passenger side door. She's halfway out when he stills. Looks around. Sniffs. Rogue sniffs, too.

She's about to ask him if he smells smoke when a great big something jumps out at Logan from above and behind, knocking him back into the snow. The mammoth creature has to be over seven feet tall. Loose blonde hair and animal pelts hang over his back. When he opens his mouth to roar, he has fangs.

Smoke blurs her view. Inside the cab, she sees flames licking the back of her seat. "Um, fire!" Fire attacking her money, more importantly. She's about to rescue it when Logan hurtling toward the tree-line catches her attention.

Her adrenaline spikes.

Rogue peels off her gloves. Then she peels the passenger side door off its hinges.

On his way to where Logan is trying to will himself upright, Fangs hefts a thick log like it's a baseball bat. Rogue gives it her best guess and shot-puts the door. Fangs sees it coming soon enough to turn his back. By the time it hits him, the door isn't going very fast but it has enough bulk to knock him to his knees.

Logan lumbers up from all fours. Gapes at her.

"He's getting up!"

Rogue skitters forward onto the hood. Fangs has the door now, and Logan looks back just in time to see him swinging for the fences.

_Takeoff!_

Her legs propel her body into the air, pointed directly at projectile Logan. There's nothing she can do to brace herself against his surprising mass meeting hers. His stomach hits her shoulder, and he grunts in pain. She balances him on her back, but they're spinning out of control.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" he yells in her ear. Rogue has no energy to scream out loud. It's all focused inward: Carol, Carol, Carol, Carol, Carol!

The wind has picked up abruptly, swirling them in falling snow. A flash of red.

Fangs' roar reconnects her brain to her spinal cord. Rogue pushes up and out. Her body responds fast enough that they're well over the trees when an explosion sounds. Logan's unintelligible howl echoes off the low cliffs they're heading for.

She doesn't have to see it to know what the blasted remnants of his truck look like. The memory of a car bomb sinking shrapnel eight inches deep into a palm tree comes to the forefront of her mind. Her next thought is more personal – Bye-bye twenty-two hundred dollars. Later, she'll let herself get upset over the loss. Now, she needs to concentrate.

Before she could do it herself, she used to think the trick to flying was weightlessness. That's how it looks in cartoons, anyway. However, real world physics requires force to overcome gravity. Flying takes muscle, mental as well as physical.

Mental is harder for Rogue to maintain. The dark gathers around the edges of her eyelids. Carol, she thinks, but she's been swallowed up again. The dark is an abyss. It's only a matter of time before Rogue falls in with her.

"Hey, hey – Kid! Hey!"

The back of her thigh stings.

"Marie!"

Physics again. She's losing momentum. What goes up must come down; a slow decent becomes a freefall. Logan's weight tips her over, so that he bares the full burden of her body in absorbing their impact on the icy, uneven ground.

Two final thoughts cross Rogue's mind – she can feel Logan's arms wrapped tight around her waist, she recognizes the sound of a receding jet overhead – before an uncertain dark claims her.


	4. Money, chapter 4

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track one / "MONEY"**

**MONEY, GET BACK / I'M ALL RIGHT, JACK, KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY STACK**

_Logan turns his back on her dumbfounded expression and starts walking. _

"_End of the road, kid. Hated knowing you."_

– _Logan –_

Acrid bile froths in his throat. Nothing Logan can do but choke on it, until his back knits itself together well enough for him to shove the girl off and roll onto his side. He empties the contents of his stomach onto the snow. Blood's next, then dry heaves. Between the fight, the flight, and the fall, it's a good amount of time before Logan can stagger to his feet.

Even passed out, Marie annoys him. He nudges her in the shoulder with his booted toe. "Wake up." He doesn't think she can be injured, so he nudges her harder. She flops back like a dead fish.

With a noise of frustration, he crouches beside her. The bare fingers of her left hand are curled against her ear. Snow glistens on her glowing red face. She looks as fragile and sweet as glass-spun sugar – a lying façade if Logan's ever seen one.

He's about to rap her against the forehead when he remembers what she said about her skin, whatever the hell "they get hurt" is supposed to mean. She didn't say anything about hair, so he slides his hand inside her hood and checks for skull injuries. She's sweating, not bleeding. Pure exertion got her.

"You think I feel sorry for you, kid?" Logan shakes her limp head no. "You think I asked you to lug my heavy ass up into the damn clouds?" He shakes her head harder. Right again. "You think I asked you to get me into a fight with a maniac fuckin' mutant? My chopper probably stolen by now, my pickup blown all the hell – you think I asked for that? Huh?" He's got her by the shoulders now. "You think I asked you and your goddamn problems into my shit life?" Logan has to force himself to stop shaking her before he breaks her neck. He sits back on his haunches, panting in her face.

Her nose twitches. She coughs. "Ugh." She opens her eyes. Coughs twice. Moans, "What died in your mouth?"

Logan lets her drop to her elbows. He swipes his hand across his face as he stands. There's some vomit in his beard, which he wipes on his sleeve. "I'm not big into flying."

Marie's still coughing. "Suck on some snow or something. God."

"You finished? That's where I threw up."

"Oh, ew. Ew. I almost touched it." She scrambles back on her knees. "It's everywhere. How did all that even come out of you?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say it was the forty-foot drop with the hundred pound weight on my stomach."

"Okay, that was not intentional. You know, neither of us are dead or mangled, so it was at least a fairly successful rescue." Marie winces as she gets to her feet like a wobbly-kneed colt. "Where'd we end up, anyway?"

That's the single decent upshot of this whole fucking catastrophe. The backdrop of the Rockies is as familiar to him as the back of his unscarred hand. His cabin's just a short hike over the next ridge.

"High Level is twenty kilometers northwest. That's where I was taking you. Ten minutes away, as the crow flies. Can't do much better."

Incredulous, she asks, "You want me to fly us again? I can't." She shivers visibly. Eyes not leaving his, she extracts her long gloves from the pockets of her cloak.

"Not us, you. And if you can't fly, walk."

"But where're you going?"

"Home's due north, and I don't need you destroying that, too." Logan turns his back on her dumbfounded expression and starts walking. "End of the road, kid. Hated knowing you."

"But – Hey, no. You can't leave me. There's a fangy Sasquatch back there, and my money's on fire!"

He pivots. "The money I gave you after you tried to steal it from me at gunpoint. Easy come easy go."

Marie puts her gloved hands on her hips. "First off, only half of the money was actually your winnings. Second, it's gone because I chose you over it. Fangs would've knocked your head clean off your shoulders if it wasn't for me."

"If it wasn't for you – "

"Don't try to make him my fault! Fangs totally went after you." A valid point. One she ruins by milking it. "So if he comes after me to get to you…" She trails off significantly.

"Can't guilt-trip me, kid. You may not have any common sense, but you're sure as shit strong enough to take care of yourself. On top of that, you've done not one damn thing to endear yourself to me. I don't owe you nothin'."

"Okay. Okay, you don't. I know that. Logan, I – " Marie takes a step forward. He takes a step back. "I can't go into town. I'm on the run now more than ever. You may not care about money, but without it…where am I supposed to go?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know or you don't care?"

"Pick one."

"Shit." Gingerly she tilts her neck back. Tears gleam in her eyes, but she laughs. It's sharp and quick to end. "Look, you can skewer me with your claws or whatever, but I'm gonna follow you back to your house. I have to eat. One meal, and I'll fly away. I swear."

Logan shifts uncomfortably, suddenly unable to agree to do so little for someone who needs so much.

"I'm not too proud to beg."

He turns and walks away. "Move your ass," he tells her for the second time.

Marie keeps pace on his left, taking two strides for his every one. She's edgy, looking around the forest like the trees are going attack outright.

"Fangs won't be able to track us since we flew, so that's good, right?"

Logan grunts.

"Do you know why he's after you?"

He'd tell her to mind her own business, but, hell, he can't work out how it's his business, either. "I don't have a fuckin' clue what that was back there. I counted no less than three mutants."

"Three?"

"Two more showed up while you were busy playin' Supergirl. Friends of yours?"

"I don't have any friends."

"Yeah, well neither do I," he replies before he can stop himself. Pressing on quickly, he points out, "But you do got enemies."

"I told you, they'd never let a bunch of mutants run around using their powers like that. Besides, they're doctors. They don't have jets."

"Who the hell does?"

"I don't know. Military? You were in the army."

He grunts. Had to have been, war is in his dreams. Would've been a long time ago, though. Too long ago, by anyone's standards.

"Well, it's probably not military, actually," Marie says, like it wasn't her suggestion in the first place. "The US, at least, definitely does not use mutants. Too risky, too much liability. It's automatic discharge if they find out. Then they recommend you to Southaven for 'treatment.' Believe me, I know."

"You were not in the army." He actually laughs at the suggestion. "You're just a kid."

She bristles. "Air Force. Two tours in Afghanistan."

"Bullshit."

"Ask me anything. Ask me what it feels like to barrel roll a Boeing F-22 Raptor. Ask me the best place to score bootlegs and contraband in Kandahar." She taps her temple. "It's all up here."

"Right."

She stops to dig into her collar, bringing out a set of dog tags. "These belong to Captain Carol Susan Jane Danvers. I held her until she died, so don't you tell me I'm just a kid."

Logan recognizes the deep, turbulent currents running under the surface of those watery brown eyes of hers. It's a wonder she hasn't drown. He has. More than once.

* * *

"Fair enough," he replies, longing for a cigar.

Marie lets the chain drop as she stomps past him. "Jerk."

His sympathy threatens to dissolve. "What was that?"

"You heard me," she calls over her shoulder.

"Slow down," he orders, long legs eating up the distance between them. "Break your ankle, you're on your own."

"That'll be a change. Just think, the faster we walk, the sooner you can kick me to the curb."

"Been thinkin' about it."

They come to a high incline, on top of which rests the unpaved road to his cabin. Tree roots stick out down the side. It'd be an easy climb, if it weren't for the melting ice. He slips twice, the second time as he's hauling himself over the top. Wet mud clings to his jacket and his jeans.

"Well done."

He turns, and Marie's hovering directly behind him. She smirks. Logan has a strong urge to pop her like a helium balloon and watch her zip away. Instead, he turns around and starts walking. It's not long before she's huffing and puffing trying to keep up.

"Flying takes a lot outta you."

"I'd like to see you try it someday."

"House rule: Only people who shut their yaps get to eat."

Marie falls silent, obviously just remembering she's supposed to be humbled by gratitude.

As always, the approach to his cabin feels somehow right. Situated on a plateau, except for the view from above it's camouflaged by the encroaching forest spreading out behind it. His cabin is sturdy, he cut down the timber for the necessary repairs himself, and a decent size, especially since he added the loft three summers ago. He stops before he gets to the side porch, ostensibly to check for wind damage on the roof.

"Wow," Marie says.

"What?"

She smiles at him. For the first time, a sweet smile. "It's nice."

Logan snorts, but that's what he wants to hear. Fifteen years, and his cabin is the only thing he has to show for it. "Roof needs re-shingling. And the inside's…not finished." Actually, he wrecked it the day he lit out for the winter.

"Outer appearances first. How like a man."

"How like a woman. No concern for structural integrity."

Marie's smile gets brighter. There's a small gap between her front teeth. He likes it because he's decided it's one of the things that makes her look older. That's important, because she's pretty when she smiles at him.

Or maybe he likes it because when she's smiling wide enough to show teeth that means she isn't talking.

He fishes out his keys as he strides up the porch steps. Unlocking the front door and stepping inside, he scowls at the deep gashes in the entryway wall. He almost forgot how stir-crazy he was when he left. The evidence reminds him. There are claw marks in the large, open den, too. His favorite chair lies overturned and the coffee table is in pieces. He steps over it to get to the kitchen.

Pulling out his cigars from one of the drawers, he watches Marie pick her way through the destruction. She stops at the bay windows, which look out over the screened-in back porch and the big pond. Pushing aside the tattered curtains, she asks lightly, "Ornery house cat?"

He takes a long drag on his cigar, relaxing slightly. "Ornery owner."

"No foolin'?" she laughs, sliding out of her cloak and a zip-up jacket. She's wearing a high-necked black top underneath. Fitted. He was right about too skinny, but those are hips he's seeing now. And breasts.

Cigar clamped between his teeth, he opens all his cabinets at once. "There ain't much here, kid," he warns. "Canned vegetables, instant potatoes. More jerky. Crackers. Whiskey." He opens the refrigerator. "Jar of pickles." He turns to her. "Been gone a while, and I wasn't exactly expectin' company."

"Sounds like a the makings of a feast to me."

Comment's not as glib as he'd like it to be. He shuts the refrigerator. "Eat what you can. I'll get the water and the boiler going."

Her thanks follows him into the very back of the cabin.

Pipes froze at some point so it's a chore getting things up and running, which gives him plenty of time to stew. The mutant trio bothers the hell out of Logan, but not as much as the fact that Marie is right – Fangs attacked him. Saved him from the law, then lured him into a trap. Somebody else's trap, no doubt, since Fangs seems about as intelligent as he looks. But whose plan and to what end?

Logan flexes his hands, feeling the metal under his skin even now. He was designed for use by someone; more than anything, he wants to know who that someone was. But not at the expense of his freedom. And not at the expense of the kid. She won't get far on half a meal and zero dollars, not with a whole mess of people after her. Logan has cash money he hasn't found a use for yet stashed under the floorboards, but even that won't guarantee she's not caught.

Marie has to stay, only thing for it.

Logan kicks the boiler hard. It clunks slowly to life.

Hell. He runs his fingers through his hair, jerking back at the smell of his own armpit. Tools put away, he heads down the hall to the cabin's only bathroom – could be an issue – to wash up. Water's like ice, so he leaves it running.

He's tugging off his muddy boots when he remembers that he doesn't even like the girl. She's a pain in his ass, as unpredictable as she is moody. She'll start out obliging, maybe, but give it a day and she'll be whining that the mattress in the loft is too lumpy and demanding she get his bed.

Logan scowls and sticks his arm under the water. Still icy. He mans up and gets in anyway.

So he has a housemate for awhile. Big deal. He's shacked up with women before. Almost decade ago, he stayed in Montana with a down on her luck divorcee with killer legs for nearly five months. Of course, when they weren't fucking they were arguing over some stupid shit or other. And, come to think of it, he spent most of that time on the road just to get away from her. Made a damn fine maid, though. Clothes washed. Meals cooked.

There's an idea. He'll put Marie to work, tell her she can earn back that two thousand dollars. Probably take longer than a few days, but more's the better as far as safe travel goes. Second she starts driving him up the wall, he'll hit the road and deduct rent for the trouble. He's got a list of projects a mile long, so there's no shortage of work.

Facts are facts, and a week or so of aggravation is much less likely to kill him than even one day of exposure is likely to kill her.

Talk about exposure, his dick's about frozen to his leg. Still sudsy when he shuts off the water, he towel dries the soap off. Marie'll probably need shampoo and other girly shit, he thinks. And clothes, because he's not about to let her go naked, danger skin beside the point. Logan's a lot of things, but he's no maker of whores.

He's not above petty revenge, though. First thing he thinks to have her do is wash the mud off his jacket. By hand.


	5. Money, chapter 5

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track one / "MONEY"**

**MONEY, GET AWAY / GET A GOOD JOB WITH GOOD PAY AND YOU'RE OKAY**

"_You're right, it is just money. There're more important things." _

_She rocks up on the sides of her feet. Grins. "Like friends."_

– _Rogue –_

Rogue slouches over the stove, a mostly-eaten package of crackers to her right. Her mouth waters at the heavenly smell of frying fish.

_When the bubbles burst like that, it's time to flip it_, her momma instructs her, and Rogue complies gratefully. How could it be that she ever took her momma's cooking for granted? Her daddy used to call her his spoiled little Mississippi princess. She took that for granted, too.

"Hey," Logan says from somewhere behind her, making her jump and about knock over the frying pan.

"Sneak up on a girl!"

"Where'd you get the trout?"

"I got it from the pond. Make a noise or something, jeez."

"You fish?"

Not very well, until good old Guff. "Me? I'm a fly-fishing champ from way back."

"That supposed to be a pun?"

Rogue's lip quirks. "No. I caught these two beauties the old fashioned way. Your rod was out on the back porch." She gives the meat a push with the back of the spatula. "Five more minutes ought to do it. Mashed potatoes and green beans are already done."

Logan leans back against the counter on the other side of the stove. He's wearing just a white cotton shirt now, so she can't help but eye his muscles as he folds his arms across his chest. "Say one thing for you, you're resourceful."

She twists around. "That was a compliment."

He shrugs.

Rogue's surprised, but she'll let it lie. She flips the fish in silence.

Taking out two plates from the cabinet over his head, he hands them to her. Skin brushes fabric.

A slow itch spreads beneath her protective layers, beginning with her fingertips, clasped tight around the plate and the spatula. Rogue hasn't forgotten how the first sight of him in the cage absorbed her interest, how his keen senses impressed her, how his life-threatening injuries healed without a scar. She wouldn't need money, if she had –

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. No. Stop it, she tells herself fiercely. Worse than the dark, this is the mutation, the monster.

Beside Rogue, her oblivious almost-victim rolls out the flatware drawer. "All I got is water," he says.

She uses the time it takes her to set the dishes out on the table to find her voice again. "Sugar, I think we both deserve something a little stronger."

He grunts and pulls down the half-empty bottle of whiskey, which he brings to the table along with two fairly large glasses.

_Good stuff_.

Guff is less articulate already. Soon he'll be speechless, just a set of skills she'll have to struggle to remember. Rogue picks up her glass after Logan pours and, with a swift toast, pounds one back for Patrick Lee Guff and his impressive 'stache. She'll miss the conversation, just a little; she'll miss the way it fills the dark and feeds the monster.

Logan sips his own whiskey, his stare evaluating. Rogue doesn't care. As if he could even begin to guess at her thoughts.

She gingerly takes a seat – muscles she didn't even know she has are sore – and rearranges the food on her plate. Hungry as she is, Rogue doesn't want to start the meal. When it ends, she'll have to make a liar out of herself. She won't leave. He'll try to make her, she'll fight him and win. She's already sick over it.

"'S wrong?" Logan frowns around his fork.

"Nothing. Is it good?"

He grunts again.

Rogue smooths out an aged paper napkin over her lap. Fiddles with the frayed edges. She can't deny herself any longer and cuts off a piece of fish. Savors it.

"You got an end game?" Logan asks suddenly.

Rogue nods as she chews. Puts up her hand to cover her mouth. "Anchorage."

"What's in Anchorage?"

"Alaskans…Sorry," she shrugs. "I figure if I dye my hair, change my name, I can start on somewhere as a waitress. If I hoard my every paycheck, maybe I can eventually open up my own bar and restaurant, like my Uncle Nuts has back in Meridian. Mississippi, that's where I'm from."

"You could do that anywhere. Why Anchorage?"

Her mouth turns up wryly. "Because a long time ago, a little girl had a big map on her wall with pins stuck in it, and the destination didn't sound like an adventure unless it ended in snow."

"Little girl, huh? Couldn't have been that long ago."

_That's right. You're seventeen years old, young lady, so don't you be inviting Trouble of his sort_.

"I'm twenty-one," she sasses, because it's about as far as she can pass. "How old are you?"

Oh, that eyebrow does not look pleased with the question.

Sipping on whiskey, she has enough pluck to ask, "What's the matter, sugar? You afraid I'm gonna think you're too old for me?"

There it is. Reluctant humor. "No doubt about that. I stopped aging a long time ago."

Neat. "So how old are you really? A hundred?"

"Couldn't tell you," he says briskly.

Please. His hedging is getting ridiculous. "What, are we talking amnesia? Government conspiracy?"

The stare he fixes her with makes her want to crawl under the table.

Slowly, apologetically, she says, "Someone…gave you those claws. Didn't they?"

A little of the hardness leaves his eyes. "What'd they do to you?'"

"'They' never laid a hand on me." She murmurs, "Too scared to do it for themselves." Rogue wipes her mouth with her napkin. Scratches at her plate with her fork. "How come you don't know how old you are?" A desperate question. She doesn't want to talk about Southaven. She wants him to trust her.

Voice clipped, Logan answers, "Woke up in the ass end of nowhere. Didn't even know my name, let alone my birth date." He scoops up a forkful of green beans. "That was fifteen years ago."

Something's happening here. She doesn't understand why, but she knows from their conversation in the truck – "Every time," he'd said – that if she asks the right questions he'll give her honest answers. Quite a concept.

"You remembered, though? Your name, at least."

"No."

"So, then you must've met someone who knew you – "

"'Logan' was on the tag, before."

"Before what?" Rogue tries to get a look at it again, but it's tucked where he seems to like it. Inside his shirts and out of everyone else's business.

"Sliced it in half. Thought someone might be tracking me."

Grimly, Rogue shows him the small, lumpy scar on the inside of her wrist where she'd fished out a flat microchip. She wouldn't have known it was even there, if she weren't –

_A memory-suckin' leech!_

Rogue slams down hard on Eugene Macomb's unexpected yelp, and focuses instead on the raised hairs on Logan's left arm. He brings his fork up to rip off a piece of meat.

She looks down at the tabletop. It occurs to her that he must not know a single person who remembers him or any of the things he's forgotten. The awfulness of that droops her shoulders. Which is worse? she wonders, because plenty of people know her, know what happened to her, only none of them have offered any understanding.

* * *

Rogue searches for something else to ask, hitting on the cabin since she knows this, at the very least, he likes. "How long have you lived here?"

He looks around, nodding slightly. "On and off, fifteen years." He adds a shrug. "Maybe."

"Does that mean you might've lived here before?"

"No one else has claimed it. It was run down when I found it, but there were clothes here."

"And they fit." Through a bite of mashed potatoes, she says, "That sounds hopeful."

"You think," he replies in a way that makes her doubt it. "What about you? Gotta lot of hope after that clinic?"

"What do you care? You hate me," she spits back, startled by her own nastiness.

"Jesus, kid, I never said I hated you."

"Yes you did. You said, 'Hated knowing you,' when you tried to leave me in the woods."

He doesn't have a reply.

"Look, either talk to me like a person or treat me like dirt. I can't take your mood swings."

"My mood swings? One minute you're docile as a lamb, next you're rarin' for a fight. Case in point."

"In response to you."

He jabs his knife in the air. "Huh-uh. That shit's internal. You're off your rocker, kid."

"Yeah, well you would be, too."

"I am!" His mouth is open so wide she can see the hunk of fish and potatoes between his molars. "Look at this fuckin' place, claw marks everywhere. Like an animal lives here." Abruptly, he falls silent, all his focus on his whiskey.

Rogue recognizes "animal" as "monster" and swallows heavily. If wanting his mutation upsets her internal balance, she's clearly no less guilty of upsetting his. So she tells him what she wants to be told herself: "For what it's worth, I like you." She tries to laugh. "Whether you deserve it or not."

She's barely had time to get that out when he says, "This is good fish. I'd pay good money to eat fish like this in a restaurant."

"I'll send you a postcard from Anchorage. You can be my first customer."

"If you get there in one piece."

"Very nice. Thank you."

"What would you call a meal like this in your restaurant? Fifteen bucks? Thirty with tip, since you did the fishing yourself. We can agree on that, right?"

"Not following, sugar."

"You're gonna stay here for a while. Cook for me, clean, fix up the place. Split firewood with your bare hands. Whatever chores I ask, you'll do them. And I'll pay you. When you earn back that two thousand dollars, you're free to go."

Relief hits her in dizzying waves. Rogue's not even aware she's crying until she feels wetness dripping from her chin. She glances up at Logan, who's looking at her in abject horror. She bursts out laughing.

"What'd I say about mood swings?" he complains.

A snort bubbles up and she puts her napkin to her nose to keep snot from going everywhere. That makes her lose it further, leaning forward and bouncing her fist off the table.

"Watch it! You're gonna break the last decent piece of furniture in this place."

Rogue shakes her head, still crying and laughing at the same time. No adrenaline spike, she could tell him, meaning right now she's about strong as she looks.

He raises his voice to be heard. "Knock it off already."

Steadying breath. Calm. She sits back heavily, wiping a finger under her eyes. "Whatever you say, sir."

"Deference ain't gonna stick, is it?"

She snickers. "Probably not." Her tummy aches, and it's from fullness as much as from laughter. A few more giggles, another deep breath, and the fit passes. Rogue's left relaxed. It's a strange feeling. She flashes Logan a smile. Twirls a finger by her temple, mouths, "Cuckoo."

Ankle resting on his knee, Logan leans on the back legs of his chair. He's lit another cigar, which he holds between two fingers when he gestures to her. "You didn't sleep at all last night, I forgot. Finish eating, and I'll show you where you can rest up."

"Orders worth following," she toasts, picking up her fork again.

When she's done, she talks him into another eight bucks for doing the dishes quickly.

"You're a hell of a haggler. Come on, I got sheets in the closet back here."

"Learned to first day in Kabul," she tells him, falling into step. It doesn't feel like lying, adapting Carol's history as her own.

"How'd you end up the Air Force, anyway?"

"My parents didn't want me anymore when I turned out to be a mutant. Military or bust."

A half truth, only Carol's was prettier. Even though she was an adult when her mutant gene surfaced, her parents took it upon themselves to care for her while she was in Southaven. The Danvers loved their daughter unconditionally. Not exactly what Rogue feels for her own parents or they for her.

"Shit parents." Logan dumps a pile of torn up blankets into her arms.

"Kind of. I…hurt people. Accidentally. The boy next door. My momma. Just from a touch. I couldn't be at school – Or, you know, in the barracks. That's why I had to go to Southaven. As far as mutations go, poison skin's no healing power."

Logan reaches up to pull on a string hanging from the ceiling, revealing a set of wooden stairs. "You can fly, super strength. That part's not too shabby." He motions her to go first.

No, not too shabby, but stolen at the highest cost she'd ever paid. She won't tell him that. He already thinks she's crazy, and he doesn't even know a thing about the inside of her head.

The loft is one room, unpainted wood like the rest of the house, with a mattress tucked into one of the corners. It slants up with the roof, which has been cut out for a panel of glass, sort of like a skylight.

"I can get something to cover that up."

"Don't. It'll be nice to sleep in the sun."

He clears his throat. Looks around. "Right. I'll leave you to it." He starts back down the stairs.

"Logan? It was two thousand two hundred dollars, actually." It's not what she meant to say. She hopes he gets the message behind it – a willingness to work and a desire to stay as long as possible.

"Marie, it's just money."

Before, she would've argued, told him that money makes her world go 'round. Now, Rogue stands in the first real home she's been inside since her parents packed her bags for Southaven a lifetime ago.

She looks at Logan. Really looks at him. Mutton chops, Indianhead belt buckle, veined arms, and dry knuckles – if he could be typed, he would've been exactly the type she'd have never known in that other, privileged life. Where the toughest part about getting money in her pocket was putting up with that minute or so of her daddy grumbling that they're house poor, with her momma taking up her cause by calling him stingy and demanding he provide for his daughter's caprice.

Yet, it's this man, her momma's Trouble, to whom Rogue has done much more harm than good – it's this man who gives her the benefit of the doubt and lets her stay under his roof. An incredible turn of events just devastating enough for her to embrace.

"You're right, it is just money. There're more important things." She rocks up on the sides of her feet. Grins. "Like friends."

His eyebrow elevates slowly. "Take that nap, darlin'. You're still loopy." But there's a hint of amusement in his smirk as he disappears down the stairs.

By herself but not alone, Rogue flops on the mattress like the carefree teenager she might've been. The bundle of sheets in her arms smells like dust and pine, and a little like Logan. She hides her face in them, embarrassed by her whimsy but pleased all the same. She's got no right to be feeling so good. Not in the face of all the very serious problems in her life, ones that have only escalated in the past twelve hours.

Through aches and exhaustion, Rogue grins. Nope, no right at all.


	6. Any Color You Like, chapter 1

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track two / "ANY COLOR YOU LIKE"**

**OUT OF THE BLUE**

"_I'm – Hell, kid. For all you know I could be a…" He slides his hand out of his pocket _

_to indicate any number of things. Rapist. Serial killer. Jesus freak._

– _Logan –_

Not unusual for Logan to ramble aimlessly room to room when he first comes back to the cabin. That a fixed position could offer any sort of relaxation is a concept that takes awhile for him to believe. The open road needs time to work itself out of his system, and even then he never quite loses the call. Forward motion is forward motion regardless of how circular the drive.

So he paces, head tilted back when he's not adding to the mental list of shit he's wrecked that he now has to fix just in case he decides it needs punishing again. Not as bad as he thought. The recliner has seen worse, simple enough to get new wood for the bottom. TV toppled but didn't break. Nothing above the mantel fell. Overhead beams look sturdy.

Weren't for the fire, he'd be unpacking, too: that book with the familiar cover belonged with the others in the back room; the mid-nineteenth century map of Canada that he'd picked up when he was down in Kelowna would've been just the right size to cover that gash in the wall, though not the high one next to it. His gaze moves to the ceiling again.

No, the restlessness isn't anything out of the ordinary but the preoccupation is. There's a runaway-mutant ex-soldier girl-woman fast asleep in his loft, and Logan has to decide whether or not he should wake for her dinner.

Kid can't really afford to be skipping meals the way she clearly has. If it weren't for the generous ass he hadn't been able to keep himself from eyeing on the way up the stairs earlier, she'd be lean as a greyhound. Way she ate her lunch, chewing slowly, holding each bite in her mouth before swallowing, was even more pitiful than the way she'd somehow managed to look dainty devouring the piece of jerky he'd given her in the pickup. It was those hollow cheekbones of hers. Made him think she was some kind of bird long before she proved she could fly.

Logan wishes she'd just smell the food and come out herself, but even with the stairs down she hasn't made a peep. Of course, some asshole did make her drive straight through the night so she more than deserves the shuteye.

He moves into the kitchen to check how the rabbit is cooking. Kind of a scrawny thing, but she'll do for tonight, maybe with some leftovers for jerky. A deer would've been better, that way he could put off going to town awhile longer, but Logan didn't want to go too far into the woods.

The rabbit he'd found right in the brush. Big, fearless eyes had locked onto his. She didn't even twitch an ear as he inched closer. Could've been his imagination, but her head seemed to tilt when he slowly pushed one claw though the skin between his knuckles. The measured sting made him remember a question no one had ever thought to ask him before – "Does it hurt?" Open curiosity, no wariness. The rabbit, locked down by his stare, let him kneel beside her. A small quiver in her haunches betrayed warranted mistrust. Still, it wasn't until Logan reached out to touch the velvety-looking fur on her back that she uncoiled her legs and he sliced off her head.

Have to eat something.

Opening the oven, he cuts into the rabbit with a knife. The sum of his cooking talent is a sixth sense about exactly when the meat is on the right side of rare. He gives it ten more minutes. So long as the finished product sits in its own juices, it's edible enough for him. He has a spice rack that could be a hundred years old for all he uses it. Marie'd thought to cook the trout in honey, and it was the best damn thing he'd eaten in recent memory. Were he a complete and utter bastard he'd have already hauled her out of bed and gotten her to work her magic on the rabbit. He hadn't, but just how tempting the thought was spoke plenty to his character.

He pops open a can of corn and dumps it into the pot he took from the sink. He puts on some soup, too, and sets out the crackers. Enough for now, though he doesn't know how he's going to feed her tomorrow. No bread, no milk. He could've been to the store and back twice in the time she's been asleep.

Seemed like a risk. Kid doesn't need to be waking up in some backwoods cabin, roughneck owner nowhere to be found. Sleep deprived as she was, it was possible she hadn't been thinking straight when she agreed to stay. She'd called them friends, too, another suspect judgment call. Logan doesn't pretend to know how twenty-one year-old kids deal with life on the run, but there's no denying she's put herself in an awfully vulnerable position. Super strength, poison skin, whatever the hell else she thinks she's got in her arsenal wouldn't be enough to keep him from getting at her, if he was some kind of psycho pervert.

Sure, he knows Marie's safer under his roof than outside of it, but just because he told her so doesn't mean it's smart to believe him. Least she could've done was ask him to close the stairs and put the mattress over it or something. That she didn't isn't so much a compliment as it is a cause for concern – fucked up people are unavoidable and this world, and they should've taught her a lesson by now.

And wasn't that just the most horrible goddamn thing to wish on anybody? Christ's sake.

Logan ends up eating the rabbit on his own. He called her name up the stairs half-heartedly, but, even though the whole place belongs to him as much as anything did, going up into the loft would've felt like a violation of her privacy. So he leans on the refrigerator as he shovels food in his mouth, staring at the setting sun through tattered curtains. After he's had his full, he stands out on the porch for a better view.

Only when the blue is almost completely faded from the sky and the stairs to the loft creak does Logan realize, all afternoon, he's been doing nothing but waiting for Marie.

Sliding steps muffled by socks, he turns as she comes to join him.

"Hey," he says, pulling his crossed arms tighter against his chest.

She squints at him, eyes still puffy from sleep. Hand hidden under the blanket she has wrapped around her shoulders, she reaches up to rub her tangled hair. Her answer is lost in a sudden, voracious yawn. Shaking it off, she drops into the porch's only chair.

"I had the weirdest dream about you," she raspily tells him, as if they know each other well enough to share shit like that. As if he'd ever.

He makes a general sort of noise, which doesn't do anything to convey the real questions on his mind, like how sharp the ax in his hand was and how fast she was running in the other direction.

A tired smile appears on her face as her eyes drift shut. "You took me to prom."

To…What in the hell? He looks into the sunset. Just as he thought. Poor judgment.

"The tux fit great," she continues. "And your dress was real pretty."

Incredulous, he turns back around.

Marie just goes on grinning charmingly, eyes awake now. A snort tumbles out, starting an avalanche of giggles she has to suppress against the blanket. "Faces like that, you should carry around a mirror," she eventually manages.

He shakes his head slightly, aware that he's starting to smile. "There's food in the kitchen."

"Smells great," she says, snuggling deeper into the chair and rocking herself. "Thank you."

Her eyes drift to the skyline. Oranges and pinks and reds bleed into the pond and glint off the powdery show. A golden eagle grips tree bark in her talons, beating her wings to settle herself in.

"This is how I always thought the great white North would look," Marie observes. "I haven't gotten to see it like this yet."

"Too busy tryin' to keep warm," he guesses.

She agrees. "Rogue the Lonesome Hobo."

"Why 'Rogue'?"

"Anna Marie D'Ancanto's too Southern."

Logan quirks an eyebrow. "Oh, I see. 'Rogue' is sophisticated."

"Shut up," she chuckles, warmth rising in her cheeks.

He smirks. "Get your dinner."

"Mm."

Marie's head lolls against the back of the rocker. They watch the color fade behind the trees. He listens as her breathing turns deep and even.

"Kid. Food," he says. "Before you pass out."

Eyes still shut, her lips turn up. "I was fishing for you to bring it to me." She pushes herself to her feet, stiff as an old lady. "I guess the boss shouldn't have to wait on the help."

Never occurred to him to fix her a plate. Her good humor aside, he feels reprimanded. Like a damn puppy who didn't know the rules of fetch.

Logan turns his grimace toward the window. Sun's pretty much set. Tomorrow, he'll stand at the edge of the cliff at the front of the cabin and watch the it rise. He likes the order to that cycle.

When he starts to lose the light, he shoves his fingers into the pockets of his jeans and shoulders his way back into the cabin.

* * *

In the kitchen, Marie leans back in her chair. She's humming a tune he can almost place. The plate and bowl in front of her are practically licked clean.

"You get enough?"

She pats her tummy. "More soon. I'm digesting." Marie idly picks up the tune again. Dylan, he decides, just as she starts to murmur-sing, "'How does it feel…'"

Logan stands against the counter. "Make me a list – stick to the essentials – and I'll go to town tomorrow."

"There's only one thing in this whole world I want right now." She runs her tongue over her teeth, making a face. "A toothbrush."

"Bathroom, under the sink."

"Bless you."

He shrugs off her grateful relief. "When I'm in town, I'll check the papers, too. Find out the damage."

Marie cringes.

"What the hell were you thinking?" He surprises himself with the question, and even more with how much he actually wants to know.

Her open-palmed answer lifts her shoulders to her ears. She drops her arms bonelessly.

That response is the last thing he wants from her. He scowls. "You don't think things through much, do you?"

Eyebrows at her hairline, she asks, "Are you lecturing me?"

"No," he replies, not convincing himself anymore than Marie.

She rubs her hands over her face. "I could've sworn when I went to sleep I was 'resourceful.' Now I'm back to being a 'stupid kid.'"

"That ain't what I'm sayin'," he counters, the hurt in her voice making him bark at her. "I'm – Hell, kid. For all you know I could be a…" He slides his hand out of his pocket to indicate any number of things. Rapist. Serial killer. Jesus freak.

"Mutant lumberjack guy with near-immortality and razor-sharp fist claws?" she offers. "I could still end you with my pinky toe. But I'm beholden to you, so don't you worry your spiky, bearded head about it." The tone she uses drips sarcasm, but her little chin juts forward.

He opens his mouth to tell her off. Laughter comes out instead. Jesus! Rubber meets glue, no question. What a smart-mouthed spitfire she is.

Indignation drops Marie's jaw.

Rolling chuckles settle in the back of his throat. "Button your mouth, kid. You'll let the flies in."

She harrumphs, but gives him a closed-lipped grin anyway.

It strikes him all of a sudden, how sweet Marie actually is and how much that scares the hell of out of him. He doesn't know where to look.

Turning, he steps down into the main room and throws, "Make that list," out behind him.

He occupies himself getting the TV working again. The socket hangs out by the wires. He must've jerked it out of the wall when he tipped the set over. He fits it back in, while Marie starts to clean up the mess he left in the kitchen.

"Leave it. You're dead on your feet," he calls, jerking his hand back just in time to avoid a spark. "I ain't askin' for slave labor."

"Now listen here, sugar. A minute ago you were berating me because I don't fear you properly. Until you make up your mind about yourself, I'm gonna go ahead and do what I feel like doing. All right?"

"Yeah, all – " Motherfucker! He sucks on his burnt fingers. The generator out back more than survived another winter.

He's already healed and finished with the fixture by the time Marie appears beside him with a glass of whiskey. "Bet that smarts," she says, handing it over.

Phantom pain. His brain is never quite as quick to forget as his body. Ironic, since his memory functions in the opposite.

He drinks, and Marie rights the TV so it sits straight in its frame. Her gloved hands trail over the varnished wood. "Impressive," she comments. "Though I don't suppose you get cable."

"Depends on the time of day," he replies.

Going over to the couch, he sets his glass down to pick up the remote. He flips past a few blank channels before landing on the Oilers against the Flames. A rerun no doubt, but he hasn't watched it yet. He settles into the cushions grandly, finally, arms outspread.

That ass he was admiring earlier is now in his way. "One side or the other, Marie."

"Can I join you?" she asks, motioning to the long space next to him.

Logan shrugs. "Suit yourself."

She sits, the back of her hair brushing along the edge of the couch and against his fingers. He resists the twitch.

"You know anything about hockey?" he asks pointedly, wary of Dixie-belle ignorance.

"I've picked up a few things here and there. Flames have Kipoff – Kipruff?"

"Kiprusoff."

"That's the one. I remember now. He was the top goaltender a few years back. He deserved it this season, too. Especially after that shutout against Montreal. Our offense drags ass this year, compared to our defense."

"'Our'? You from Mississippi by way of Calgary?"

Marie waves it off. "Ours, yours, theirs. Anyway, this'll be no contest. I heard the Oilers phoned it in since the preseason."

"Oh, that so?"

"Long distance," she confirms.

"I don't know who you're gettin' your facts from, kid, but the Oilers are damn close to their dynasty years. Next season – "

"Oilers fans are always, always talking about next season. The present must be painful for you guys."

Logan puts up one finger, twisting around. "Listen, if you want to start the Battle of Alberta under my roof, you're not gonna interrupt…"

Marie's not paying attention. She's holding her head away from the hand that slipped onto her shoulder. He pulls it back immediately.

"You crowded?" He nods toward the length of the couch.

She folds up her legs Indian-style so that her knee rests on his leg. "Nope. You?"

The innocent expression on her face tells him it's a kind of game. He thinks it might be better for his sanity if he refuses to play. Her face starts to fall.

Logan stacks his palm on top of her knee. "Nope."

Pleased glint on the TV, she says, "Oh, watch this. Seventeen's about to eat ice. Look at that leg wobble. And…wipeout. Ouch."

"Yeah, well, he put Visnovsky in a sweet position."

"Too bad he's not getting by my man Kip."

Kiprusoff doesn't let her down, and the puck knocks against the boards.

"Visnovsky'll come back with it. He doesn't miss twice."

"Wanna bet?" Marie nudges him when he all he gives her is a look. "I'm serious. Ten bucks a call and, let's say, fifty dollars advance if I go under."

"Darlin', you're forgettin' this is all my money anyway."

Marie puts a satin-covered finger to her full bottom lip thoughtfully. "So we should make it twenty bucks a call and a hundred dollar advance. I like the way you think." Her index finger salutes the TV. "That's twenty for me."

In the replay, Visnovsky's second shot bounces off the crossbar.

Logan starts to suspect this game of hers is rigged. The next two miraculous predictions confirm it.

"Lansdale ain't exactly known for his aggression," Logan says after she gives herself twenty more dollars for calling the rookie crashing at the net.

Marie's got to know he's on to her. She just gives one of her dainty shrugs. "Lucky guess, that's all. Pardon me, sugar."

She gets up on her knees and crawls over him, ass lifted into the perfect smacking position. He digs his blunt fingernails into the couch cushions until she's over the side and swinging her hips into the kitchen.

"I'm gonna make us a snack. Give you chance to catch up."

A cheating gambler and an unapologetic thief, not to mention a shameless flirt. Logan sure can pick 'em.

Or could be it's that she can chose 'em. Maybe this is just how she gets by. Damsel in distress routine lands her a new sucker boyfriend in every town, she takes them for everything they got, then she moves on.

He's still thinking about that possibility when she comes around the couch with a plate of stale crackers and a jar of peanut butter with a faded label.

Marie wedges her socked feet under his thigh. "You're like a furnace. What'd I miss?"

She's watched this game already, that's for sure. Probably on a fuzzy TV in the kind of motel that advertises vibrating beds, with her ass in the lap of some shaggy-haired, fedora-wearing card-shark grifter.

"Wha'?" Peanut butter sticks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Not exactly the picture of a master con artist. She's back to being that sweet kid again.

Cynicism disappears faster than it came on. He snorts. "Jig's up. Why don't you just tell me the score?"

She answers sheepishly through peanut butter and a polite hand covering her mouth, "Seven-tree, F'ames."

Figures. He changes the channel. "Better get used to the idea of earning an honest dollar."

"Exactly where does the cable company send your bills?"

He reaches over to take the buttered cracker out of her hands and pops it between his teeth. Out of one side of his mouth, he says, "Do as I say, kid. Not as I do."

Giggling, Marie wipes his crumbs off her chest.

He peels his eyes away and concentrates on not looking back. Car ad. Skelton of an actress he wouldn't have kicked out bed five years ago. _Nightrider_, pansy_. MacGyver_, better. Tampon commercial. Figure skating. _Highlander_'s running credits, too bad. Bullshit mutant PSA. That flick about a girl on a milk carton. Not a half-bad Spanish soap. Mm. He could go for some hot wings.

"Jeez, you flip so fast how do even register what's on?" Marie complains.

His finger automatically pauses on CBC but he catches himself.

"Hey, wait, go back."

"No." Stupid thing to say. It peaks her interest even more.

She catches him off guard by yanking the remote out of his hand. Not once in his entire abbreviated life has anyone had balls-out gall to assume control of a television he's watching.

"I take it you already sleep with one eye open."

"I sleep like a rock, actually." Marie goes back exactly three channels. Her brow goes in. "Your guilty pleasure is _Canadian Antiques Road Show_?"

Logan takes the remote and tosses it on the rug. "_Antiques Road Show_ it is."

"The thrills you backwood Canadians get up to." Settling in so close their belt loops are touching, she asks, "So do you hide copies of _Better Homes & Gardens_ under your mattress or what?"

"Button it."

For awhile, all he hears other than the TV is Marie munching on her crackers. Much better. Logan stretches out again.

He snorts at a woman, married to a ninth-generation Molson, who thinks she's got a mahogany candle stand on her hands. "It's for servin' tea," he educates Marie. "She put the cup on the shelf and the kettle on top, and poured from there."

"'She' who?"

Logan's a little thrown. "She. Her." Isn't that what he said? A second later, the appraiser proves him right about it being a kettle stand. "Told ya."

Neck craned like a groundhog, Marie's doing some math. "Honestly, you should be on the show. Look at that rug, or the kitchen table. The TV itself is probably worth a killing."

Logan brushes that comment off. "Don't start gettin' ideas about flying off with my dinette set."

Marie pokes him in the ribs. "Say, 'dinette set' again."

"Quit it." He locks her into place against his side. "I'm ticklish."

On screen, the Molson woman is screeching over a ten thousand dollar offer and flinging her arms around the appraiser, who hollers, "I'm blushing, I'm blushing!"

Marie's breathing hitches. Logan can smell her blood stirring up, see it rising to color her cheeks. And, hell, no wonder, he's all but hefting her right tit. He moves his hand to the small of her back. She awkwardly tugs down her shirt, nerves souring her scent again.

Christ sake. He leans forward and rubs his bare hand together. He can feel her eyes intent on his profile. What was he thinking, putting his arm around her like he had the right? If she wasn't anxious about his character before, he's giving her good cause to be now.

"Look it," he mutters. "I wasn't tryin' anythin'."

"Oh," she replies. Then, after a second, "Why not?"

He jerks his stare to her face. Slowly, her bowed, parted lips widen into the brightest smile he's seen from her yet. She cocks her head to the side, giving her expression an allure no one who smells so innocent has any right to.

Logan's lost count of how many times Marie's swiped his feet out from under him in the single day he's known her.

Fuck almighty, he should've known he was in for it.


	7. Any Color You Like, chapter 2

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track two / "ANY COLOR YOU LIKE"**

**GREEN-EYED MONSTER**

"_You saw what I did," she reminds him. _

"_I killed her. It took seconds. It could happen to you."_

– _Rogue –_

The measuring cup drops to the kitchen floor when Rogue hears the rattling hiss. Her bare hand stills over the fifty pound bag of flour. A second passes as a minute, and the snake flicks its banded tail against the open flap.

Rogue breathes, "Ew," even as a several voices tell her to shriek and run. She keeps still, irrationally more afraid of the snake slithering into sight than she is of it striking from where she can't see. Cooler minds prevail. Slowly, very slowly, she pulls her hand away, palm up.

A flat head glances her, and Rogue skitters back from the pantry with the frantic impression that the snake is flying toward her face.

A wheezy whoop punctuations her realization that she's got the snake around the neck. _Keep a hold, mutie! _

Hardly able to make a sound, she curses at the snake, herself, and other people's stupid, moronic, Darwin award-winning impulses.

The snake is enormous. Four feet long. The markings on its back are dark enough that it takes a minute for her to realize that something took a bite out of it.

It pulls back to strike!

Rogue throws up one elbow to protect herself. The other she straightens, pushing the jerking, disgusting thing as far away as her arm will stretch. Hand twitching wildly, her fingertips betray her and dig into the snake's spongy back.

'_At's a way! Poison the sucker, like it wants t' poison you._ The hard-forgotten hacking twang of Redneck Macomb, he of the key-jangling sadism. Two snakes too many.

"Logan!" she croaks. She tries again to little more success.

But he's in the shower, and the snake is pissed and trying to wrap itself – herself, it's a her, just slithered out of brumation and looking for a male – inch by dry, reptilian inch around Rogue's arms – David's brother had a boa constrictor he threatened in him with, slow death by strangulation – and she's too preoccupied with poison to do anything normal, like shake her off or snap her spine.

As Rogue draws her lips back in disgust, the snake bares her fangs to the gums. Their eyes are impossibly round and so afraid. Skin. Sharp. Suck. Sink.

We agree on that, she thinks, washed by a sudden calm. Rogue pulls the snake's face closer to her own. She snaps and hisses, but that's her right. In the end, there can be only one predator.

To the snake, she thinks, Stronger mind, stronger poison.

Wood creaks. Logan edges into the kitchen. His hand is stretched out toward her, palm up. "Gonna have to be quick about this," he says steadily.

Her eyes snap shut. Her fingers curve around to hide the veins protruding from her throat just as the snake goes limp. She holds the carcass out to him.

"Are you hurt?" Logan's tone is insistent and he's getting closer. He must've already asked a few times.

"I didn't mean to touch her," Rogue says, dropping the snake in a pile at her feet. She clasps her empty hands together and wrings. "She was in the flour."

Water from his wet hair drips into Logan's eyes. He doesn't blink. "Show me your arms."

Blood still pounds hard, darkening her veins. She shows him smooth, undamaged skin.

"Christ," he bites off, shaking more water out of his hair. "I thought – I come out here, ready to give you hell, and you're in a starin' contest with a damn snake..."

"Give me hell?" she prompts. Even that sounds like a safer subject.

He pounces on it. "You used up all the hot water again."

"I did?" she remarks to his chin, the highest part of his body she can manage to direct her eyes.

A drop of water falls from his scruff to his chest and rolls down. The towel he's barely wrapped in rides rakishly across the cut of his hips, like the wide belts of the swashbucklers on the paperbacks her momma read in delicious rotation.

He says something about twelve year-old water heaters. She nods.

Little Marie was about twelve when she took to sneaking into her momma's bedroom to pour through those paperbacks, one after another, in a shocking haze of bodice-ripping and maidenhead-stealing. The flushed anticipation of getting caught only doubled the thrill, because she knew when her momma gasped, "Holy hell!" and knocked _The Golden Barbarian_ out of her hands that she'd found something worth the trouble.

Her momma starts up again, gasping and knocking around her head. The compulsion to get caught looking only gets more irresistible. Rogue's eyes lock on the intersection of what the towel exposes and what it doesn't. A vein winds from the space between Logan's lower abs to edge of the gray cloth, which is thin and damp enough for her momma to cry indecency.

But the old forbidden fascination has been replaced. It's possible to reach out to touch what had to be covered, not what could acceptably be left bare. The vein, nothing but blood pounding under raised skin, is more obscene than the bulge. His torso, his ankles, his face – skin and hair, hair and skin. Nowhere to look but the towel, dead center.

Logan shifts his hips in a move so self-conscious it startles Rogue into recognizing the sudden silence. He can probably hear her knees knocking together.

She holds onto her arms at the elbows, skin prickling. "I won't do it again," she says, and steps over her kill. "Do you want pancakes? I was about to make pancakes. Start offering the praise now, because you are going to heaven." Pulling open the refrigerator, she pushes a carton of milk aside and frowns. "No blueberries?"

"Didn't look good at the store."

"No?" She shuts the fridge and leans against it. "Another morning." Rogue points a toe. "I guess we could eat her. Circle of life and all that. Or not. I just feel like I haven't eaten in weeks."

Why is she so breathless?

One chip of pink passion nail polish on her big toe is all that's left of her last pedicure. Fascinating. She doesn't often go barefoot. Wiggling her toes, she thinks of cold, damp soil.

Her eyes dart up to Logan, then flick over to the jerky he left out last night. She snatches up a handful and beats a hasty retreat. "Gotta get dressed. I've got that roof to finish."

"Hey, hey," Logan chides as she picks her way around him. "You take it easy. You ain't right."

Rogue's breath catches on a hiss. Concern, not accusation. Even still. She lifts her chin. "I have a job to do, and my boss won't pay me until it's done." They argued, two days before, about whether she should get paid hourly or by the job. She lost. "So."

Logan gives her a wide berth.

Hours later, she's up on the roof and he's still in the house. She can hear him, though. His words, "You ain't right," are in her head like a new personality. The opposite of the understanding she has with the snake.

Ugh. Animals, with their half-thoughts and quarter-memories, never sit right. But they aren't usually so overpowering. Rogue sniffs back her runny nose and shakes her body to dislodge the brain fog.

Levity and lightness – that's what Carol the Marvel would proscribe.

Arms pointed straight out for balance against the wind, she hesitates as she tries to convince her spine to fall into a graceful backbend. Though she personally hasn't done tricks on a balance beam since she was about eight, Carol performed all the way through college.

Rogue tests the traction of her sneakers against the shingles she's just re-nailed. She decides that wool socks are a better idea, so she drops her shoes into the wet snow a story and a half below. The work gloves she keeps for their warmth and thickness.

Perching again on the crease, she takes a deep breath and waits until her mind signals her body to remember something it's never felt – that rush of exhilaration that comes with posing in front of a crowd, muscles quivering in anticipation.

A crowd is not something she can easily conjure up, not with the expansive, desolate panoramic view she's come to revel in this past week. The view over the cliff alone excites a sense of discovery in her, as if at the bottom there could be some new world.

She knows for a fact there's a dirt road down there, but it's a nice daydream.

Deep breath, bent knees – Rogue nearly misses catching her weight, but manages to maintain a handstand through force of adrenaline. Her knees still almost buckle against the wind.

"Marie!"

The metal ladder shakes with the force of Logan clambering up. Very carefully, she walks her body around so she can see a little bit of him thorough her hair. It's an impressive display, if she does say so herself, even if she is cheating with some anti-gravity action.

And, okay, none of the talent actually belongs to her, but he doesn't know that. He's not going to find out, either. Because as useful as it is, it's still galling that whenever she's unsure of him she automatically turns on the Carol filter.

Carol has a history of being good at impressing men. Rogue's imitation is passable. The first time she a quipped a Carolism – "Oh, I know why women love you, cowboy. You talk low, you talk slow, and you don't say much…with your mouth" – it earned her a sidelong, half-lidded stare hot enough to sent her stomach into spasms.

Not that it takes much. Even his glower agitates the butterflies.

"You actively tryin' to get yourself killed today?" Logan grouches, still standing on the ladder.

Snorting, she brings her arms out to her sides and hovers upside down.

"Uh-huh. Stay there awhile, you need as much blood to the brain as you can get."

"Tough crowd," Rogue acknowledges, wondering what the easiest way to right herself would be. Upside down, she spins thoughtfully.

"This ain't a circus, kid. Finish over by the loft or leave it for me. It's gonna rain again tonight, and there's no reason you should have to sleep on the couch."

"Couch was comfy," she replies, actually meaning that he was comfy.

A good amount of maneuvering had gone into getting herself into the perfect position so that when her head started to droop she could rest it on his shoulder, and then slide it ever so slowly into his lap.

He didn't seem bothered one way or another, but even after seven days and sixteen hours of shamelessly flirting with what amounts to a brick wall with eyebrows, Rogue is still carefully holding out hope that he thinks she's sexy. Or at least pretty. Heck, she'll take cute at this point – anything he likes.

The huge fleece shirt she has tucked into the waistband of her jeans slips suddenly over her eyes. Perhaps he'll like getting flashed by a bra that's seen better days?

"Quit messin' around," he snaps.

Rogue fumbles with the shirt while attempting to get to a standing position. A gust of wind twists her so that she falls shoulder-first onto the roof and then slides halfway down it on her stomach.

Ow.

Almost as exasperated as she is embarrassed and hurt, Rogue doesn't even make an effort to get up.

Logan crouches beside her. The leather of his work gloves brush against her exposed spine, making her jerk her already raw stomach against the rough shingles.

He stands swiftly, barking, "Well, kid, you're bleedin'. Roll yourself over."

Rogue gets onto her hands and knees instead, and holds her arm out to him as a peace offering. He helps her up, his begrudging expression fading. She lifts the flannel shirt up and sticks her pelvic bone out so they can both assess the damage. Wide, uneven stripes of red run vertically from her belly button to her ribcage, oozing tiny splotches of blood.

"It looks worse than it feels," she tells him, even though it stings like hell.

He picks out a piece of asphalt and holds it so close to her nose she has to look at it cross-eyed. "It's gonna feel a lot worse soaked in peroxide."

Ignoring her pitiful whine, he impels her toward the ladder. His belt buckle hits against her butt on the way down as he keeps that babying proximity reserved for the injured or the infirm.

He stops her on the last rung, telling her to stay put.

"No sense," he mutters, shaking the wet snow off her tennis shoes and lifting her ankle so he can shove one on and then the other.

Rogue snorts, hopping to the ground. "Tie them for me, too. I don't know how."

He just tugs her along into the house.

"Why're you acting so weird?" she asks him before he asks her. "Yesterday, you were – " She stops herself at "wonderful," though the patient, intelligent way he taught her how to keep an engine in good repair deserves the term. And, while he did tease her into blushing laughter more times than she can remember, "dead sexy" she skips right over entirely.

"I was what?" he asks, letting go of her once they're through the backdoor and striding ahead.

"Right!" she finishes, bent over a little as she shuffles to the bathroom.

Thigh against the sink, Logan's unwrapping the first-aid kit he clearly bought just for her. Makes her feel a little ungrateful.

"You don't know me well enough to know right," he says evenly.

"Why do you do that?" Rogue asks, eyes on the thick, hollow tips of the work gloves as she pulls out the flannel shirt to unstick it from her stomach. Her best friend in junior high used to get injured like this when she slid into home plate. Raspberries, she called them.

Logan's focus is on applying Neosporin to the back of the length of gauze.

"I mean, the way you make knowing someone all about time." Keeping the flannel away from her body, she tries to slip the bottom button open. "I know you just as well as you know me, which might not be as well as somebody who's known me my whole life or whatever, but I'm not even close to who I was even a year ago."

The bottom button finally comes undone, but the next keeps rolling into the fold of the extra fabric over her thumb.

"So you just getting to know me now still gives you the advantage over anybody else."

She might as well being wearing mittens for all the dexterity these gloves give her.

Tossing them in the sink with Logan's, she returns to the task with renewed vigor and a final point to her rambling – "And, seeing as how you're all Lone Ranger, I'm pretty sure I've got the advantage, too."

The shirt slides down her arms and drops to the tile, making Logan look down at her.

"It was sticking." Rogue tries to shrug, not knowing what to do with so much skin but not wanting to look anymore like an idiot. She hooks her fingers into the back waistband of her jeans and juts her hip out casually.

While he unscrews the peroxide, she slyly checks herself out. Her bra shrunk in the wash, which does great things for her cleavage. Logan turns back around, and Rogue looks at the ceiling of all places. Smooth.

He sets the peroxide on the sink, followed by the tweezers, which he squeezes a couple times just to make her grimace.

"There has to be a better way," she gripes, her eyes already on his forehead and her skin starting to wake up before her brain hits upon the obvious. Rogue clamps her eyes shut.

"Name it," he prompts.

She shakes her head vigorously. Not even an option. Even if it means he'd never get to say she doesn't know him well enough again.

Well. Except for the part where he'd probably never talk to her again.

Impatiently, Logan says her name.

"I want the peroxide," she replies, more to herself.

"Then take this." He pushes a towel against her.

Eyes still closed, she holds it so nothing will drip into her jeans. As he tips the bottle against her skin, Rogue wonders if he can see the quiver. The reaching out.

The acid-like bubbling is painful, especially when Logan blots at it with a ripped towel square, but it's easy to ignore compared to the itch. That gash had to have been four inches long and at least an inch wide. And his skin had just sealed itself, smooth as wax dripping down a candle.

Everyone's skin has a will of its own. Goosebumps, ticklishness, wrinkles, sweat glands, bruises, scars. Healing. Poisoning. Pulling. It just happens. Less consciously than breathing.

Logan catches skin with the tweezers. Rogue hisses out a breath, her eyes flying open and her hand catching his.

Bare fingers clamped over his knuckles, she's filled with a dizzying relief. Latex. He's wearing hospital gloves. The thin kind, not the high-risk, double-layered latex they used at Southaven.

Her lips form a tremulous smile. "Gloves. Thoughtful," she says, and she means it even if it's a precaution for the infectious. She takes a shaky breath, blinking rapidly.

"You're tougher than this," Logan tells her, sounding confused.

Rogue clasps her hands behind her back. "I wasn't – I wasn't paying attention. And I didn't know you were wearing gloves." Tears spill over, drip babishly from her chin.

"Hey." Latex brushes her shoulders. "Hey, c'mon. You couldn't hurt me that much."

The arrogance. Frustration and snot clog her voice. "You saw what I did," she reminds him. "I killed her. It took seconds. It could happen to you."

"No."

"Yes!"

His skepticism isn't helping and neither is the fact that she does know what would've happened, at least in the long run.

Even if Logan forgave it as an accident, neither of them would be able to look at each other the same way. Especially not her. She'd know what is to be Wolverine – to be really and truly invincible – and the next time she took from him it would be on purpose.

And then she'd be right back on her way to becoming the monster they always said she was.

* * *

The bathroom is suddenly too small. She hits her elbow against the sink when she draws her hands up to brush the asphalt off her stomach, never mind the blood and the puss.

"There. Like ripping off a band-aid. More peroxide. Please."

Rogue tilts her chin up and Logan positively towers over her. Has he always been this tall? Or is it just that she's never felt this small? And this big. All at once.

Logan's palm – she can almost feel the ridges under the latex – presses against her forehead. He pulls it back wet. "Fever. I told you to take it easy today."

Wonderingly, she says, "I'm allergic. She poisoned me after all."

"No, kid, you're sick. After moths of breakin' into shitty motels to take showers, you're surprised you caught somethin'?"

"I never get really sick, it just…goes away." Her tone hits a flat note. It never just went away. She took, and then she got well again. Is that awful? Her moral compass isn't fine-tuned enough to know for sure.

"Hey," he says, which she's just now realizing is Logan for, "I'm about to say something meaningful."

She raises her eyes, and he slides her damp hair off her forehead.

"You can afford to be sick with me."

It takes another dose of self-control not to fall apart again. She presses her cheek against his shirt and hugs her arms around his waist. She's almost doubled-over so he can't really return the embrace. A moment's hesitation, then he tucks his elbow around her head and lets the sleeve of his other arm graze down her exposed back.

This time, Rogue doesn't flinch. She shivers.

Another beat, then he says, "Gotta take care of that fever."

She reluctantly lets him go. He's right. Her resolve probably won't hold if she gets any sicker.

Logan finishes cleaning her stomach and wraps it in gauze. He tells her to go lie down – in his room, so he can finish up on the roof. "And take a shirt," he adds, passing the door on his way to the kitchen. She's more than happy to comply, his t-shirts smelling like him as they do.

Several minutes later, he catches her drowsily burying her nose in his pillow. She lifts her head up swiftly, embarrassed but glad to accept the warm bowl of soup.

"Smells great," she jokes.

"Don't get too excited. It's out of a can. This is more important." He sets a beautifully designed sake cup and saucer down on the nightstand. "Herbal tea. Diaphoretic. Trick I picked up in Japan, among others."

Rogue smiles. "Like you've ever been sick a day in your life."

"Still won't take my word for it."

"I wasn't doubting you. Anyway, how'd you know I should take it easy? I felt…off. But even I didn't think anything of it."

"Last night you were sweatin' in your sleep, but you kept cuddlin' up like you had a chill."

Stirring her soup thoughtfully, she decides Carol would send him a wink. "I guess you're used to women drooling on your lap for different reasons."

That earns her very first eyebrow cock of the day. Rogue cocks one right back, slipping the spoon into her mouth.

"I'm gonna see about the roof. Drink that tea, kid. Fever's something you gotta sweat out."

And sweat she does. A cold sweat that gathers at her armpits and between her breasts and behind her knees. She can't get comfortable in any position, except she knows she could on her stomach pretty much because it hurts too much to be an option.

Rogue hoped to be wet and writhing on Logan's bed. But this just sucks.

Throwing off his covers, she drags herself into the bathroom and sits on the edge of the tub. The first spurts of water are as freezing as Logan complained about this morning. She's patient, though, and soon hot steam clouds the air.

Tub halfway full, she slides in with a sigh. Oh yes. Much better.

She wonders if Logan's going to get on her about the hot water again. Smirking, she spreads her limbs out. Plenty of room for two, if he'd only just join her.

A completely ludicrous, completely compelling fantasy. She rubs her pale calf against the smooth, bright white tub, trying to imagine a muscular leg covered in dark hair. How it would feel to lounge against his chest.

Rogue sinks further into the water, letting her mind drift. She starts humming Joan Jett's version of "Crimson and Clover," trying to remember what that song has to do with a bathtub and a rodeo…Oklahoma, summer before basic. He lost the trophy to a good ol' boy from Tennessee, but he pursued her like a winner so she took him back to her hotel.

There are a lot of fascinating things Carol's wild days illustrate a fearless woman can do to an enthusiastic man.

Bitterness takes Rogue out of the moment. Three strikes against her – she's too dangerous to be fearless, and Logan's obliviousness makes her seriously doubt that even a fake age and stolen experience can turn her into a woman.

Still, Carol's appreciation for a well-worn pair of jeans and everything underneath soon preoccupies her again. So much so that she doesn't notice the bathwater cooling. She has her foot propped on the edge of the tub and a hand between her thighs.

"Want something, cowboy?" she coos, before she even knows Logan's there.

Water splashes to the floor with the force of her jerking upright. A split second later, she's back down, covering herself with her arms. She peeks over the edge but doesn't see him.

"Logan?" Please say she imagined him.

No such luck. "Door came open when I knocked," he replies, evidently from around the corner.

So he didn't see? Thank God, thank God, thank God. "That's all right. Did you want something?" Rogue winces at the echo of Carol's question.

He grunts something about drowning.

"Nope, not drown." Not yet, anyway. It's tempting, now that she's nearly gotten caught three times today acting like a snake high on pheromones.

"I got more tea ready."

"Out in a sec."

He leaves, and Rogue lets her head sink underwater.

The predator instinct strikes again. She didn't lock the door. She might even have left it open to bait him in. Only she obviously doesn't have the right lure. Rogue is no bombshell, not in either sense. She wouldn't tear a man part, rip him to pieces and send him flying like Carol's exes always accused.

_Baby doll, all you need_…

She holds her breath hard. When she sits up, oxygen is the only thing on her mind.

Wrapping herself in a towel, Rogue takes a seat on the tub to let the pounding in her brain stop. She's not surprised that she feels better. Maybe her fever already broke. Or maybe it was all in her head.

Rogue watches water funnel down into the pipes.

Carol has been too much on her mind. She's pawned one too many of her memories and her traits off as her own to impress Logan. To be a bombshell.

But she's much more dangerous than that. She's a snakebite. A slow poison that would bring Logan to his knees until the spark of hate in his eyes would be his only vitality. And she'd drain even that, carry it with her always.

Macabre. Self-pitying. Whatever.

Rogue pitches the wet gauze but doesn't bother to rewrap her stomach. She gets dressed and puts on real gloves, which she hasn't worn all day.

"I have issues," Rogue announces to Logan when she takes her seat across from him at the table. "Jealousy is a big one. I was apparently a thief before I was even out of the cradle, if you can believe my daddy's 'Entitled Brat' speeches."

Logan pushes the kettle toward her, and she picks it up.

"You don't get sick. You don't get hurt. I wish I could be like that, so I want to hurt you. That's my mutation. It wasn't like that at first, and maybe I can get to a point where I'm more, I don't know, Zen about the whole thing." Rogue gulps the tea down, not caring very much when it burns her tongue.

One way to keep the monster at bay – zero self-regard.

"Ever try meditation?"

"You have?" The herbal tea was enough of a surprise.

He shrugs. "It works."

"I don't know." But then she remembers what he said about not taking his word. "I'd be willing to try."

Logan studies her. "You know your eyes've been green all day."

"It's a warning," Rogue says absently. Like when a snake rattles her tail. She sets down her sake cup, hard. For the love of God, shut up about it, she orders herself.

He pours them both more tea.

Rogue sips, watching Logan over the rim. "What color are they now?"

"They're brown." He's looking into his sake cup.

Plopping her head on her hand, she shrugs. That fact doesn't make her skin any less lethal. "They were blue when I was born. But that's common."

"Brown suits you."

Her frown pulls into a rueful smile. It's not that significant of a compliment, but she goes ahead and adds it to the mental tally she's keeping. Brown eyes at least she can claim for herself. It's a start.


	8. Any Color You Like, chapter 3

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track two / "ANY COLOR YOU LIKE"**

**A HEART OF GOLD**

_He shuts his eyes and puts his aching hands behind his head. _

"_Moon can't be all it's cracked up to be, kid."_

– _Logan –_

The glint in the old man's eye makes Logan take a deeper drag on his cigar. Glint doesn't dim in the cloud of smoke, though Buffalo's cragged expression remains unaffected. He continues his methodical wipe down of the bar top.

Logan hasn't exchanged two words with Buffalo since taking his stool, but that's how, in the old days, they both preferred these meetings to start. Logan because even though the IOUs used to be stacked up in his favor he still felt in debt, and Buffalo because he fancied himself a great reader of body language. Now there's wariness on both sides.

To hasten the start of a one-sided conversation – and his drive back north – Logan moves his attention to where Buffalo's grandson stands at the door, counting out change with his good arm. When his empty sleeve falls in the way, he lets a pretty girl tie it off for him. Free admission for a kiss on the cheek.

"Can't fault moneymaking sense for that," Buffalo says, addressing a row of liquor. "Billy has turned all my businesses around. We're opening a hotel lodge next year. We bought property ten miles east of the reservation. No favors needed since you ran off that sonuvabitch excuse for a sheriff. Doing real good now."

Must be. No doubt, crowd is bigger than it was three years ago, and it's only happy hour. Younger, too. A couple barbed-wire thin cowboys wearing black t-shirts take a seat a few stools down.

"Chris and Jared Wheeler, friends of Billy's. A community college opened in the town over last spring. Makes it so we have to have more bells and whistles, but the money is plenty enough."

A huddle of barely sober twenty year-olds in cutoff denim skirts dance by him on their way to the jukebox. A swinging length of wavy brown hair hits his arm. Marie wasn't far from his mind, but now he's thinking of her spinning in the den, scarf he bought her flying. Laughing over ten years of ballet lost on puberty and six years of stripper training sponsored by the school dance team.

He finishes his drink. Not a single desirable woman over twenty-five in the place. Goes to figure.

Buffalo sets down two tumblers of his best brandy. He toasts the grizzly torso mounted on his wall. "Nine years, Mother Fucker." He turns and toasts Logan. "Nine years, Mother Fucker's killer."

Logan puts back the brandy with none of the old man's coughing and wheezing. Nine years ago, he ran out of the woods like a wild man to slice off Buffalo Bill's grandson's arm at the shoulder. Grizzly had him below the elbow. That's a lot of arm he could've saved, had he put any forethought into it. Logan always wonders if Buffalo thinks of that while he's laying out the welcome mat. Weren't for Buffalo himself, kid would've just bled out while Logan danced with the bear.

Yeah, he can go in for heroics every now and again. But he doesn't know how anyone stomachs the messes he leaves behind.

"There been rumors up and down these parts, past couple weeks, about a mystery fight-circuit man named the Wolverine. Between you, me, and the Mother Fucker on the wall, I hear he answers to your calling card." With a significant look as his knuckles, Buffalo refills his glass. "All these years, Logan, you never did talk much about your hobbies."

A shrug is all Buffalo gets out of him.

"Can't say I've met another fight-circuit man I could put in a half-decent word for." He pours himself another toast. "'Course, can't say I ever met another fight-circuit man who got himself robbed blind and taken hostage by a young gal let out on spring break." Buffalo punctuates the crack by guzzling his brandy.

Sipping his nice and slow, the way good brandy's meant to be taken, Logan glowers.

Buffalo's laughter is mixed up with his coughing. "That's just one of the versions I heard." He swallows his hacking, wrinkled face smoothed out by curiosity. He sets his elbows, crosshatched by deep white scars, on the bar. "It's a funny case. People from all over come here, they sit down, have a drink, get to talking about it. Fights up in Laughlin shut down. Ed Baylor keeping to his house on account of some dirty money he owes that he can't pay until he sells off a motorcycle left in his possession."

Christ, his 650. He doesn't have the cash to buy it back since he has it earmarked for Marie. On top of that, he can't risk the notice. What the hell. It fell into his lap once. Give it a quarter of a century, and he'll probably find it again.

Buffalo continues, "Circuit fighters got their balls bunched up over mutants in their ranks. 'It ain't fair,' as if the circuit's ever been decent. We keep it out of these parts. This Wolverine fellow ought to keep himself out of it, too. He's a marked man."

Figured as much. He wanted to stop the way down to relieve some tension, but he thought the other way would be easier. Lust catches his notice.

The dancing girl with Marie's color hair is ass to crotch with skinny cowboy number one, but her porn princess pout is for Logan. He takes her in. She's taller than Marie. Longer legs and smaller breasts. Doesn't look the type to sit herself on a man's lap only to leap away just when he's stopped feeling like a piece of shit for letting her.

"That's Clara. She's in Billy's class at the community college. Does karaoke on Thursdays and the local boys on Fridays and Saturdays. Her daddy, Jerome O'Dell, drinks on Sundays."

Logan flicks his attention back to Buffalo. "So what?"

Buffalo's eyebrows go up a fraction. Introducing his patrons is just his way, like it's Logan's way to forget them half a second later. Usually. When he's not so on edge.

"Sure, now. There was a young gal." When Buffalo sees that's a closed subject, he moves on. "There was a young gal and a sack full of cash, on top of two Mounties mauled but good by a wild thing in the woods. Like I say, it's a funny case." He steps away to put the brandy back on the shelf. "But you're not here for my gossip. And you're not here for my brandy, or to do me any favors, or even to run off with my customers' goodtime daughters." He limps out from behind the bar. "Come on out back."

Buffalo leads Logan fifty feet into the woods behind the bar, where Buffalo's psychiatrist-turned-preacher wife converted an old one-room prairie schoolhouse into a Native American Church.

"Phyllis is down in Arizona at a conference. I won't tell her you were here." Buffalo undoes the triple padlocks, not commenting on the part of the doorframe marked by Logan's so-called calling card.

The light switch reveals rows and rows of legal mescaline in various states of bloom.

Buffalo lifts a small pot and examines the root carefully. "You know, you offended her when you wouldn't let her be your spiritual guide. And last time you swore you'd given up peyotism."

Logan feels a phantom lurch in his stomach, payback for his bender.

A decade ago, he came back from Japan more emotionally fucked up than he left, with only disordered passing memories from the experience. One year into living like he was raised by wolves – because, hell, he might've been – he saved three of Buffalo Bill's grandson's limbs from a grizzly. A healthy supply of peyote to help with his meditation brought the Zen back into Logan's life and war back into his dreams. Small price to pay for the end of his short-term memory loss.

Then it was lumberjacking, semi driving, cage fighting. A string of women with a plenty of roughnecks already notched onto their bedposts. Building and tearing down and rebuilding and tearing up a cabin on a foundation of gut instinct and self-delusion. Trying everyway he could, pleasure or pain, to kill himself and failing at even that.

Yeah, he could remember the short-term. It added up to a big, stinking pile of bullshit.

And nothing short of remembering the long-term – before Japan: the tags and the lab and the wars – would make the here and now matter.

He still believes that, but peyote didn't have the answers. Three years before, he paid for his supply by running out Buffalo's sonuvabitch sheriff. Then he did what he always gets around to doing. He took it too far. In one day, he went through all the peyote Buffalo had given him for two months and had to break into the church to steal more. When his healing factor finally caught up to the mescaline, he was armpit-deep in a river with his claws sunk deep into his own neck, no memory of what he hallucinated. Only the sound of his own voice, "I'm gonna cut your goddamn head off. See if that works."

Logan runs his tongue over his teeth. He can still taste the bitterness of the blood and vomit.

"I've started meditating again," he finally answers Buffalo, which is a least a partial truth.

He and Marie have been working at it for a week now. Only neither of them have gotten much actual meditating done. If he so much as shifted while Marie's eyes were closed, they flew open and she spent five minutes apologizing. The rest of the time, frustration all but fumed from her ears.

Inner goddamn poise, Marie, he growled this morning. "I'd be more inwardly poised if I were doing this alone," she said, and he snorted, told her they'd tried that already and this wasn't nap time. "It's six-thirty in the morning," she yelped, but he cut her off. Listen, he said. I'm not here. This house isn't here. The world isn't here. You're alone in your own mind.

She rolled onto her knees. "Don't you think I'm trying to be!" He refused to break his pose. "Tell me how, Logan," she persisted. "Tell me how, and I'll do it." Attempting to exhibit calm for her, he tried to get her to see he wasn't teaching her to change a tire. He didn't have instructions. She huffed, "What use are you, then? You're telling me to feel alone in the world – I've been alone in the world. It didn't cleared up my mind any, believe me!" In a clipped tone, he retorted, in so many words, that maybe she liked it that way. Maybe she wanted her mutation to get the best of her. Easier than closing her eyes and sitting still with another person for fifteen damn minutes.

Marie leaned over and pushed him. Just hard enough that he'd had to catch himself and, startled, meet her stung gaze. After a long, uncomfortable moment, she sat, miserably, back into her pose. She closed her eyes, obviously concentrating very hard on not crying.

Twelve hours later, he's in a Native American Church trying to score an hallucinogenic to calm her down. He left the cabin thinking he was doing it for her, but the kind of thoughts he's been having about her all the way down here beg to differ.

"I think you ought to give me a little more explanation than that," Buffalo says, cradling the pot. "Phyllis hasn't forgiven you for last time."

So Logan had been right to stay away so long. Used to be he came every other month, but even three years hasn't dimmed the disgust. "I sent money." It's the only thing he can say in his defense.

"You frightened my grandson," Buffalo tells him.

Billy's curt, "My grandfather's at the bar, Mr. Logan," earlier was enough to tell him, even though Logan doesn't remember it himself, Billy certainly hasn't forgotten.

"He saw you out in the woods. Then he saw you again, breaking into to the church. Losing a hero is a hard thing for a boy."

More snappishly than he intended, Logan says, "I told you then I never meant to do harm to your family. If I ain't welcome now, say so."

"You'll never hear me say that." Buffalo studies him. "But you're not entirely sure you want this medicine, and because of that I'm not entirely sure I want to give it to you. You're back on your past, I'd wager."

"I ain't tryin' that again."

"You saying you aren't interested in the rumors the Wolverine man with the claws has kicked up?"

Logan stills.

"I see. You're saying you haven't heard them." Buffalo puts the pot back down. "People might not remember your face, but they aren't liable to forget those claws."

"What people?"

"No actual people. Rumor. One man's second cousin's wife's brother, or the like. There was a fight, up near High Level, back when it was barely a truck stop. Tore up a bar. Man had something like knives or bones coming out his knuckles. Know anything about that?"

Bar fight more than fifteen years ago near High Level. Doesn't spark a flash. But if rumors can be even partially believed, it sounds enough like him that maybe he's been right to stick around the area like a lost dog all these years. Maybe the cabin is his.

All the more reason to get back to it as soon as possible.

Buffalo picks up a different pot. "In a few days or so, this one'll be ready enough. Give you a chance to think."

He takes it without comment. He starts toward the '72 GMC pickup he got on a steal for one of his bikes before Buffalo has the first padlock in place.

"Why 'Wolverine'?" Buffalo calls out in the semi-darkness.

Logan doesn't pause. "'Cause they're warm and fuzzy."

"You don't have to explain the resemblance. Forgive an old Indian a story, but there's one about a spirit called the wolverine and his lover, the moon – "

"I've heard it," Logan cuts Buffalo off. "Don't worry about seeing me again."

It isn't until he goes to turn on the ignition that he realizes his hands are aching under the skin, and he can't remember who told him that story. What Logan does remember is the ending. The part about the moon betraying the wolverine after tricking him into happiness.

* * *

He follows the full moon back to his cabin. Twenty different times, he almost pulls into some dive or another, hoping to find a guy who knows a guy who saw a wild man once upon a time. Or hoping to find a fight or a fuck. All of the above.

But he makes the drive without stopping. The peyote root sits beside him, where Marie wanted to be. She knew she couldn't be seen with him, though she still put up a hell of a fight. The part for the water heater he told her he had to get – the part he could've gone a few months without – clanks around in the truck bed.

Logan surprises himself by turning on the radio. The one in his old pickup hadn't even worked. The flips impatiently through a bunch of crap before stopping on a crackling Neil Young song that keeps him thinking about Marie. So he goes back to sound of the engine, only the drone isn't as soothing as it used to be.

Thing is, Buffalo wasn't wrong when he saw that Logan is torn over the peyote. When used in the right state of mind, it induces and enhances meditation. Abuse it and…well, he's seen the consequences of that. He didn't really think about how Marie would take to it or whether she'd take it all before he set out for Buffalo Bill's. He just wanted to be of some use.

That's a lot of bull. He wants a shortcut. Meditation can help Marie, he knows it, and he's tried everyway he can think of to show her, short of loading her up drugs hoping she'll float.

If he gives her the peyote, Marie will probably take it. He's already shoved meditation so far down her throat that she's snapped, yet she hasn't walked away. She's letting him push it on her, he thinks, as a trade-off for letting her push her flirtation on him. Marie's bold enough to plant her butt on his lap and demand a backrub. She's even bold enough to let the pretext slip and her knees fall open.

But she's not bold enough to let herself – or him – get any satisfaction out of it. Not even through layers of fabric. He hasn't seen so much as a bare finger since that day he walked in on her getting herself off in the bathtub. Her hot-cold act is wearing thin, especially since he knows exactly what she gets up to when she disappears into her room. It's damnation just smelling it on her.

Smelling himself on her, though, that's a whole different circle of hell. And he always thinks, after she springs away, if she would hurry up and stop being so damned skittish he could stop imagining all the nauseating things that could've happened to her to make her so afraid.

It's past late by the time he enters the dark and silent cabin with the peyote. He can imagine himself tomorrow – Hey, kid, brought you a gift. Get high, and then try to get on me again. We'll both have a better time. Never had to think of drugging a woman to keep her willing before.

And that's the better alternative. The peyote is meant to help her relax, but under these fucked up circumstances it's just as likely to do the opposite. Now that he's actually got his hands on it, he's more worried about finding her in a couple days at bottom of the cliff he just drove up.

The fuck is wrong with him? He should throw the damn peyote out.

He's got better things to think about. Like the fact that his connection to this place finally has a rational basis. At least one person in a bar full of people remembers him, the man he was before fifteen years ago. The bar-brawling man he was. Not much has changed.

Logan leaves the peyote root on the mantle, exchanging it for the samurai sword. Holding this in his hand, that's what makes him feel like there's a different man somewhere inside of him. Honor and dignity and composure – a bunch of crap, once you get right down to it. Doesn't stop the respect he feels for this sword, though, or him wanting a little of it to rub off on the swordsman.

He gives a few test-swings, does a few simple steps, and then puts the blade back on its mount. He had his chance for all of that in Japan. There was a reason he had to leave that man behind – a woman whose face he used to picture when he meditated. He doesn't think he'd recognize her now.

There's an even more forgotten woman who belongs to this cabin. Her clothes are probably molding in the box in the storage room now. He left them where he found them, in the right side of the drawer, for the longest time. The clothes that fit him – that are his, he should just get used to that – were folded in the left side. That said a lot. 'Course, whoever she was, she never came for her things. She's better off or six feet under, and he hasn't thought about either alternative since he shoved all her shit in the back years ago.

Anyhow. Could be something salvageable. Marie might like something different to wear. He takes the peyote with him, figuring he'll see how it fares in the storage room until he has to make a decision about it.

The open stairs to Marie's room makes him pause. He listens for her breathing, hearing only the slight breeze coming through what must be the open window hatch. The thought of her gone takes him halfway up the stairs, where he catches her scent.

"Marie, what the hell you doin' up on the roof this time of night?"

A hasty scramble, then she calls out, "You can come up!"

He puts the pot outside the window and hoists himself onto the roof. Marie smiles sheepishly and scoots over for him. He's swinging his legs over when he notices that she's wearing a blanket and nothing else.

Logan settles in carefully beside her. She has her eyes closed, her chin titled toward the moon. He's looking for clues for how to play this one.

Finally, he takes off his jacket, balls it up behind his head, and rolls up his sleeves. "You're right," he says, stretching out. "Practically balmy out here."

A gust kicks up, making her shiver and laugh. She slips her foot out of the blanket and nudges his leg. Her bare calf makes him think of her in the tub again. He easies his left ankle over his right.

"I didn't expect you back tonight."

"I believe it. If I'd have known you were a closet nudist, I would've gone and – "

"High-tailed it for the hills?"

" – come back early more often."

She half-smiles on the left, so he can't see it.

He tries again. "Maybe made a quieter entrance."

"Wouldn't that have been a shock? I might've fallen off the roof."

"I might've fallen off the roof." Logan smirks. "Might've been worth it."

There's the full smile. "So worth it."

They leave it at that for a long moment. It's a cool night, clear and active. An owl swoops down on a mouse.

"So what are you doin', Marie? Communing with nature?"

"I was inspired by the moon. I thought maybe I was more of a nighttime meditator. And then I thought if I could forget the cold…" She lets out a pretty little sigh. "Mostly I just turned blue."

The blanket slips off her shoulder. The way she's sitting, she'll have to flash him to fix it.

"Lemme get that," Logan says, and waits for her to tilt her neck before he tugs it over her collarbone. His hand brushes the ends of her hair. She keeps herself very still. He runs his hand over the blanket, following the curve of her side. Her expression remains determinedly flat.

Logan drops his hand and rolls off his side. She breathes deeply, a cloud of cold air coming out of her nostrils.

"S'pose since you're freezing your ass off, it's a good time to tell you I got some more clothes for you to wear. If you wash 'em first."

"Ew," she replies, nose wrinkled. Primly, she adds, "I don't want whatever's been rolling around your truck bed, thanks."

Touch of the betrayed there. Grates on his ears like always. So she didn't buy the water heater excuse. She thinks he was out getting laid. It would've been a good thing – as decent a thing as someone like him can manage – for both of them if he had.

"Ain't like that. Box of stuff in the back I forgot about, don't know whose it is."

"Oh." After a second, her grimace clears.

Hell. Again, would've been kinder to let her go on thinking what she was thinking about him. He's never given her false expectations of his character before, so he sure as shit shouldn't start doing it now. Not with all that fatal, milky skin of hers open to the elements just inches away.

He gives it a little more time.

"You can open your eyes now."

Marie keeps them resolutely closed. "Everything's a competition with you." Exactly sixty seconds later, her lashes flutter open. "Sixteen minutes," she states, letting her obvious, "I win," go unsaid.

"Hate to be a dick – "

That elicits a snort.

" – but counting ain't exactly meditating."

"I wasn't counting before you came," she says, rocking herself a little for warmth. "I was trying to be calm and serene. Like my muse, the moon." Marie tosses back her hair. "Bitch makes it look so easy. But…" She rests her chin on her shoulder so she can look at him. "I guess I'm stuck being the sun. All that conflict and thermonuclear fusion…until one day – poof – I'm all burnt up." Her mouth takes a self-mocking curve.

He shuts his eyes and puts his aching hands behind his head. "Moon can't be all it's cracked up to be, kid."

"Hm. 'Kid.'"

Guess that remark came out dismissive.

"What's that?" she asks, obviously just noticing his degenerate excuse for a present.

"Peyote root."

"How unexpectedly New Agey of you." Her tone is one of confusion.

"Helps with meditation."

"Ah." After a long minute, Marie starts shivering in earnest. "Peyote. That's like LSD, isn't it? Mescaline?"

"Yeah."

She gets to her feel, and he tries to see up her blanket as she steps over him.

"I know you're trying to help me, so thanks."

"But?"

The sound of the pot cracking on the hard snow below answers his question. Shit. He didn't even think about Southaven's fucking try-anything approach.

"I hope that wasn't expensive," she says as an afterthought, shifting from foot to foot on the cold shingles. "Sorry."

Logan sits up. "Don't be. You know what's best for you."

"I choose my own treatments now."

"That's right."

"But I don't want you thinking I'm not trying."

"I know you are. I'm a dick."

"I know you are," Marie echoes, lips forming a smile. The smile. The he's-in-for-it smile. "But mine's worse – "

She squeezes her eyes shut and opens her blanket with a self-conscious, self-liberating shriek. He barely gets an eyeful of ice-hard nipple before she's clutching it closed.

"I'm a tease," she manages through her nervy grin, and scurries through the skylight.

His head drops heavily, missing his coat and hitting the roof with a ringing thunk. Below, Marie's laughing. Clearly proud of herself.

Fuck. Almighty.

Logan rearranges his jacket behind his head. He's getting what he deserves, at least. That was a shit thing he tried to do to her, and she actually assumed he meant the gesture to help anybody other than himself. Heart of gold kid.

He thinks of her in five years, behind the counter of some greasy, side-of-the-road kind of place. In a burnt out tone he won't recognize, she'll say, "Let me get you another waitress, Mr. Logan."

As for now, she can torture him all she likes, and he'll try not to enjoy it too much. Preemptive payback for that mess.


	9. Any Color You Like, chapter 4

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track two / "ANY COLOR YOU LIKE"**

**BROWN-EYED GIRL**

"_Duh, the end is them ending up together. That's whole point _

_of this and every other movie pretty much ever made."_

– _Rogue –_

She's sunk so low her butt is wedged between the couch cushions. To appease her cramping stomach, Rogue makes a feeble attempt to straighten herself out but gives up almost before she tries. Her chin loses the fight with gravity and lulls against her shoulder. That's better, she thinks, not much caring that the fabric of some other woman's low-cut sweater has apparently been collecting thin strings of drool for the last eighteen minutes. Well, twenty-six, counting the commercial break.

It's that kind of period.

All those months on the road were too chaotic for the comfort of incapacitation. Now that she's got a roof over her once more histrionic head and an income more steady than her weekly allowance used to be, she relaxes into misery while she can.

Having waited the precise forty-eight seconds, Rogue chants, "'I carried a watermelon?'"

Sighing over Baby's first awkward dance, her eyes are torn between swiveling black-clad hips and the stack of half-eaten crepes on the table between her and the TV. So tempting. Arm fully extended, the seams of her gloves barely brush the edge. But so far away.

Rogue pulls her arm back under the warmth of the American Indian-design blanket. Hard as she wills it, the door to Logan's room remains closed. No help from that corner.

She sighs again. The sun is up, but Logan's not. He's been sleeping in these last few days, and it's not because he's suddenly decided to take it easy.

In the middle of the night, she hears him moving around downstairs. Sometimes he goes out into the woods. She asked him why he can't sleep when she asked him why he had that nightmare she heard the other night. He turned it around on her. "You ever dream about Iraq?" No, she answered, startled into struggling to come up with anecdotes. The food was nightmarish. Carol's – her – superior officer was a pig.

Then he went and asked about Southaven. I don't even think about it, she flat-out lied. Unless it comes up. Internally, she pleaded, Unless somebody brings it up, so stop. "Shit like that doesn't go away." No, it will. She was completely earnest. Once I stop running, I won't have to think about it. I don't have to think about it here hardly at all.

That's when she called him lucky. She actually said, I wish they'd given me amnesia. And she'd meant it, right up until she saw his face.

Some words no amount of explaining can take back.

It was somehow worse when his anger slipped into impassivity. "Fine, Marie. You wanna forget, that's your business. But here's some free advice: You're gonna have to run a lot farther than here. And once you get there, you'd better fall in love with lying. New name, new hometown, new past. Half-truths will just remind you, make it harder. Oh, one more thing. Count on being alone, because forgetting's the same thing as being forgotten."

That conversation amounted to the worst in both of them. Logan proved he could be deliberately cruel, and she proved she could be carelessly so. A couple hours later, they were in the shed with a box of tools, admiring the GMC's carburetor. Like it never happened.

Except that it had.

A lot farther than here, he said – kind of an obvious indicator that she might be wearing out her welcome. One of many. In fact, the only time he seems all that interested in her company is when she's trash talking herself into a compromising position, and even that's touch-and-go. Pretty literally.

So yesterday, over a breakfast that sat so long it became brunch, she choked back her wounded ego and tested her suspicion by telling him she was more than capable of house-sitting, if need be. Double the wages, of course. "You want a kings' ransom to get rid of me, darlin'?" he said all surprised, like he didn't know why she'd even bring up such a thing.

It was the "darlin'" that spurred her to it. Holding her syrup-drenched fork in her mouth contemplatively, she popped it out from between her lips and told him she thought he missed the fights. All that sweaty male testosterone…She decided to let it leave at that, but Carol egged her into adding that she could tell his shirt was just itching to come off. "That right?" And he drank his black coffee down. Carol piped up, _Ooh, girl. There are few things sexier in this world than a bobbing Adam's apple_. Rogue had just had that thought herself, for the very first time. Her annoyance with Carol, again, third-wheeling herself into the conversation was fleeting.

Rogue was thinking about Laughlin City. She had to smile, telling Logan, You know, I almost got into that cage with you, before your friend Stew volunteered. What would you have even done? His answer was a barked-out a laugh. Logan was still laughing when she pushed back the furniture in the den and told him to get off his arrogant ass. "I don't fight women," he said. Too bad for you I don't let men off that easy, Rogue replied, and Carol had her add, This is how I settled the boys down during basic.

Logan kept his shirt on, and Rogue kept her gloves. They kept their distance, too, at first, neither of them quite knowing what the other wanted out of this. He kept ducking her swings and refused to throw any of his own. So she flung her arms around his waist from behind and wrestled him to the floor. Tangled limbs, rubbing groins – a lot like dirty dancing, now that she's thinking about it. And just as dizzily unsatisfying when the music stopped, so to speak.

Rogue wriggles awkwardly in her blanket cocoon. Untouchable, unshowered, cramping, bleeding, and all riled up on top of it all. She should have realized biology existed solely to screw her over when she brought home that first C-minus freshman year.

Huffing out a grunt, she swings her legs over the side of the couch so she can pick up the plate of crepes. She savors a big bite. Buttery, silver dollar-thin pancakes drowning in fresh strawberry syrup with sliced strawberries and brown sugar on top. Her momma's very best feel-better medicine. Mmm. Like manna from heaven.

The second she slouched out to the den to find that _Dirty Dancing _was scheduled to be on after infomercials, Rogue went to the kitchen to whip up Annie D'Ancanto's extra special occasion recipe. It had been over a year since she'd tasted her momma's crepes. Last Valentine's Day, instead of going out to a fancy restaurant with daddy, momma cooked crepes all day for an impromptu lonely hearts party. The guest of honor was Gloria Casstevens, momma's serial divorcee best friend since high school. Natalie, Gloria's daughter, was there, too. She'd been suspended from school for bitch-slapping her cheating ex into the vice-principal's door. As for Marie, she'd taken a sick day to nurse her cramps and make David Cody – all-conference, tri-athlete superstar that he was – worry she wasn't as into him as he liked to think. The two generations mooned and laughed over Baby Houseman falling in love with Johnny Castle, then they skipped back to scene one to do it over again.

Rogue runs out of crepes when her momma's favorite scene – the oh-so-eighties falling in love montage – comes on. She tells herself it's the sudden sugar loss that makes her eyes water.

_Oh, my baby girl. Don't cry. Please, don't cry_. It's an echo of something her mother actually said, after the first time Rogue was dragged back, kicking and screaming, to Southaven. _If you'd have just let them help you, you could've been home by now. _

Gritting her teeth, she focuses on the movie to drown out the pleading. What she gets is an eyeful of skin-on-skin right as the door to Logan's room swings open.

She tilts her chin all the way back when he comes to rest his forearms on the back of the couch. "Morning, sugar," she says.

"Mornin'. You're at it early today," he comments, his attention lingering on the TV. He snorts when Baby yells, "You're wild!"

"I actually couldn't sleep. Which makes two of us."

"I slept."

An hour here, an hour there – not exactly what she'd call restful. Rogue waits for him to ask why she couldn't sleep, but he's actually watching the movie.

"'Luncheonette,'" he smirks.

Admittedly not the most badass of hangouts, but still. "Don't you start. Did I make fun of _Smokey and the Bandit_?"

"Yeah. You did."

"Okay, but that was educational. Someday you might be chased by 'smokeys' in the South, and on that day you're gonna thank me for giving you a realistic idea of what the highway system looks like."

"This is me holdin' my breath. Blue mats don't grow naturally in riverbeds, last I checked."

It took Rogue years to notice that error. She narrows her eyes. "_Smokey and the Bandit III_. _Smokey and the Bandit II_, for that matter. Defense rests."

The scene switches to the part where they're practicing lifts – "Now, you'll hurt me if you don't trust me," Johnny says – and Logan finally catches on to the plot. "Jesus, they supposed to be sleepin' together?"

The incredulity in his tone makes her want to reach up behind her and yank on his hair. "She's seventeen. There's nothing too young about seventeen." She's telling him much as her mother.

Logan grunts his disagreement.

Squaring her shoulders, she says, "I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. This movie has a lot of sentimental value."

"That's about all the value it could have."

Arms crossed, she mutters, "Someone doesn't want to eat today."

He pushes himself off the back of the couch. "I can find my way around my own kitchen."

Was that some kind of a threat? Some kind of an I-won't-be-requiring-your-services-soon-so-get-your-shit-and-go kind of threat? She picks up her empty plate and scurries after him as quickly as her cramps will allow.

Rogue hovers while Logan searches through the cabinets for the coffee beans. She's opened her mouth to say something snarky about maps, but he's already thought to look above the refrigerator.

Fine. But she'd like to see him figure out the kettle system she rigged up when she didn't find a Mr. Coffee or a French press handy.

Very deliberately, very smugly, Logan measures out the beans and proves he's been paying attention all these mornings. A proverb comes to mind: give a man a fish, earn your keep; teach a man to fish, get tossed out on your rear.

"Now. Where's the frying pan?"

"Okay, okay. You proved your point, Mr. Smug." Rogue bumps him away from the stove with her hip. "Move."

Logan snickers, letting her direct him to the kitchen table. She's not amused. She's not even pissed off. This may be just another one of their games to him, but she needs to keep this good thing going for herself. She needs him, which makes it even more important that he need her, even if it's for something as insignificant as a decent cup of coffee.

She takes out a clean skillet to fry up his favorite, a bacon, cheese, onion, and potato omelet. Logan adamantly prefers grease to flour and salt to sugar. She goes to the refrigerator to pull out the already chopped ingredients.

"Any of that steak left over you can warm up while you're at it?" he requests.

Rogue fixes him a look over her shoulder. "There's going to be five eggs and a quarter pound of Canadian bacon in this omelet."

He leans back to pat his hard, flat stomach. "Darlin', don't quit spoilin' me now."

The, "Or what?" is out of her mouth before she can stop it.

"Or who you gonna get to run to the off store for all your fancy ingredients?" He points an elbow at the grocery list in-progress hanging on the refrigerator door she's shutting.

Letting her armload drop heavily on the counter, she returns, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll just take my chances."

The kettle's whistling by the time he finally answers, "Suit yourself."

She takes the kettle off the boil and starts cracking eggs with a vengeance. That was about the dumbest thing she could've said. Logan is ignoring her now, his eyes on the screen in the other room. Baby's knocking at Johnny's door, ready to deliver a very effective apology.

If only it were that easy.

"What kinda screwed up kid gets her panties in a bunch after seein' a botched abortion?"

He isn't supposed to notice the hot grease she flicks at him. He gives her the eyebrow.

She bangs around his pots and cups while she's getting him his coffee. "Be as cynical as you like, but this is the first love scene I ever saw. I was nine. This, for me, is quintessential romance." She plops the mug down, letting steaming liquid drip onto the table.

Logan keeps his mouth shut, but it curls up in derision when Baby says, "You, you're everything!" after Johnny tells her he's nothing, and again at the tear-jerker line: "And most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." And when they start dancing, Logan gets a look on his face like Rogue put lemon in his coffee.

She decides to burn his omelet. Just a little. "I don't know why you're being so morally superior over there. So what, she looks young. Give it a break."

"Sorry darlin', we're just not watching the same movie. Little girl's lookin' to prove something, and he's lettin' her. That ain't romance."

Rogue flips his omelet onto a plate and hands it to him. "You just haven't seen the end yet." It comes out more confident than it feels.

* * *

She goes back to the refrigerator to get out the leftover steak. While she heats it up, she keeps her back to the TV. All that effortless naked touching with Logan three feet away and her bent over from cramps just seems like pointless cruelty.

He turns his back on the screen, too, when he gets up to put on more hot water. He pulls down a new box of tea, this one with a picture of a moon on it. "Here. Figured you'd be needing this."

Rogue eyes him. "You went to the store three days ago. How'd you know…"

Logan's expression asks her if she really wants an answer to that question. He chuckles when she edges away, thighs clamped together. "If you stunk, I wouldn't stand so close."

That disgusting sentiment does little to take the trauma out of the notion.

With the spatula she was using, Logan plops his sizzling steak on a new plate and takes it into the den. He spreads himself out on the couch she was planning on monopolizing all day.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

"Educating myself."

Hrmph. Rogue takes her time drinking her tea and cleaning up the kitchen. Every once in awhile, he'll throw a comment her way – after Baby answers how "it," the dancing, went by double-entendring, "Fine. I didn't do the lifts, but it was good," Logan says, "Tough break. No wonder the guy's so nervous" – and Rogue finds herself smiling.

His good mood is still unaccountably annoying. She should be pleased with the turnaround. Only the way he's been stalking around the place recently has made her wary of being lulled into a false sense of security.

No busy work left to do, Rogue takes her second cup of tea and sits at the far end of the couch. Logan scoots the blanket toward her. She picks at its frayed ends.

"Somethin' wrong?"

Her shrug is almost a cringe. If he's starting to begrudging her presence then bringing it up probably isn't the smartest course of action. But he's waiting expectantly, so she has to say something. "I'm…I'm doing a good job, aren't I? The cabin looks nice, and you still like my cooking. Right?"

"Sure. Tastes good even burnt."

She tries to smile but doesn't quite make it. "So, then why…" The quiver in her stomach is more than cramps. "Never mind," she mutters.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just wanted make sure you're getting your money's worth. I have a thousand dollars left. To go, I mean. A thousand more dollars to earn."

Logan's in full-on scowl mode now. "That's our deal. You stick to it, so will I. All right?"

"Yeah, all right. I was just saying, you know, for the record." She forces herself to stop nodding. So he's not planning on kicking her out, at least not now. She doesn't really know what more she wants out of him.

He's still frowning when he states, "I thought that's what you were cryin' over earlier. You shoulda known better."

"I wasn't crying," she says, which is true. She was on the verge of crying. Big difference. "And, no. Actually. It's this, this stupid, sentimental movie. I was thinking about – " The word home won't come out, so she finishes with, "…my mother." Her misery sinks her back into the cushions. "Guess when I get to Alaska I'm going have to stop watching old movies, too, huh?" Not a very good joke.

On the screen, Baby yells, "You were right, Johnny, you can't win not matter what you do."

Rogue thinks really hard about what she can say to make it right. She takes a deep breath. "Logan?"

"Yeah."

"I really don't dream about…you know, the clinic or Iraq or Mississippi, or anything. I mean, if I have dreams I can't ever remember them." She plasters a flirty smile on her face. "That dream I said I had about you taking me to the prom? I made that up."

Logan seems a little amused. "No kiddin'?"

"So…I guess, what I want you to know is that I do dream, but I do it when I'm awake. So I get to think of good stuff. And don't think there's anything wrong with that."

Logan looks her over. "What kinda good stuff?"

"Like about Anchorage and my restaurant. What kind of food I'll serve and when." She pulls her legs up so she's looking right at Logan. She wants him to be able to visualize with her. "The different menu options at different times of day is key. I want it to be a retro family diner for breakfast and lunch, but have real gourmet-type options for dinner. Then, after nine, we'll serve tapas, like they do at really trendy bars…What?"

The particular expression on Logan's face doesn't fade. He's looking at her eyes, not in them. She thinks he might say they're pretty.

"What?" she repeats, a pleased smile already forming.

"I dunno. Haven't seen you this enthusiastic before. You talked like this back in Mississippi?"

Rogue has to laugh at herself. "Constantly, about a million different things. Uncle Nuts always called me the girl with the plan." Or the girl with the lost eyes when she got too caught up.

"Betcha no one ever said no, either. Not once you turned those big, brown eyes on 'em."

Her smile falters. "No, I usually got my way. Except when it counted." She grasps onto her last train of thought. "Anyway, I've thought a lot about wallpaper, too. It's kitsch, but it can also be cool with the right attitude." She gets her grin back. "Like the way you wear flannel. You're actually inspiring a whole palate. The seventies are very now. What do you think?"

"Sounds like it could be a real nice place."

Rogue puffs out a sigh. "But?"

"But you gotta know what you got covering the walls isn't gonna matter much if anyone ever comes knockin' at your door."

"But," she emphasizes. "You're inspiration for that, too. I've been paying attention to how you keep a low profile. You can teach how to stay off the grid."

He scratches the side of his beard. "Suppose I can do that."

Commercials over, Baby and Johnny say their -never-be-sorries.

Logan's eyebrows go up. "This the end?"

"Duh, the end is them ending up together. That's whole point of this and every other movie pretty much ever made."

Shrugging, he picks up the remote. "Seems like a fair enough ending to me." The TV goes to black.

"Hey! Patrick Swayze was singing!" Like a hypnotist, Logan dangles a key before her eyes. She stops protesting. "Is that the _Easy Rider_ bike?"

He's a bit irritated. "The 1962 1200 CC Harley-Davidson chopper I built from the ground up."

"You told me I was not even to think about the 1962 whatever from _Easy Rider_ bike that you practically gave birth to."

Logan spins the key by its ring and ambles toward the door. "Never know when I'll change my mind." He picks up both their coats from the rack. "That means you got about twenty seconds to beat me to the shed."

Rogue launches herself off the couch. He makes it out the door before her, but she kills his lead by vaulting over the porch railing. Fortunately, Logan's loping strides sink more in the half-mud, half-slush yard. With a mental, "Suck it, gym teachers!" she squeezes past Logan just in time to make it into the shed, victorious.

"Keys," she huffs, one hand extended and the other resting on the top of her thigh. Whew. Nothing like a healthy sprint for stomach cramps.

Logan holds out the keys, only to snatch them back. "Sorry, kid. You lose on a technicality. No shoes, no service."

She looks down. Her feet don't even feel wet. "I've got about six layers of socks on. That 'technically' constitutes shoes."

"Mm, sorry. Judges say no."

"The judges are a bunch of cheaters," she mutters, putting up her hair. Then it occurs to her. Head titled just so, eyes as wide they'll go, she sidles up to him. "Not you, though. You're a man of integrity." Eyelash flutter for the win.

Taking her by the shoulders, Logan draws their faces closer together. Now she's the one with the befuddled expression, watching the sunlit gold rings in his irises. His lids come down with his smirk, and he spins her around and pushes her toward the bike. "Darlin', good effort. I'm afraid the ruling stands."

"Like I ever had a fair shot to begin with," Rogue complains, putting on her cloak and letting him get on first.

"That's right, lesson number one. No such thing as a fair shot." He stops her swinging her leg over, and taps the back of the bike. "Lesson two – acquired plates. Remember that."

Rogue squishes in behind him on the exaggeratedly low seat and reaches around to zip his jacket. "Shut up and drive, sugar. I wanna go fast."

It's a risky move, having him teach her how to leave him. She's banking on time working in her favor. Keeping him around is going to be a daily battle. Rather cheerfully, she thinks it might be ten years before the realization that he hasn't left her yet and doesn't intend to just sneaks up on him one day.

A piece down the hill, she yells in his ear, "Someday maybe I'll return the favor, you could work for me! Half-bodyguard, half-mascot – Eep!" She keeps her grip locked even after he's set the front wheel back onto the road.

That's all right. Logan can go ahead and ignore it for now. It's just a seed, planted for the faraway future. Another one of her daydream plans. Rogue rubs her stinging cheek against the cool leather of his jacket, trying not to think about how well any of those have actually turned out.

This could be different, though. It's a game, the longest, most evenly-matched game they've played. A contest to see how high she can raise the stakes before either of them loses grip on their better natures and folds.


	10. Breathe, chapter 1

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**LEAVE / BUT DON'T LEAVE ME**

"_Kiss won't kill me," he murmurs. Have her like any other woman, _

_he tells himself, and he won't feel so much like a molester._

– _Logan –_

Logan doesn't get out of bed until he hears the screen door clank shut and her footsteps, sliding slightly on dewy grass, fade into the forest. A muggy breeze has been blowing through his window since before dawn, making the sheet stick to his back as he sits up and throws his legs over the side.

Snow's been melting steadily the last two weeks or so, but temperatures haven't gotten nearly this high. It's as if the Chinook wind decided to disregard nature and migrate north just to mark a difference between last night and this morning. An especially obnoxious metaphor.

Still decompressing, he rubs the sleeplessness from his face. As he stands, his narrowed eyes go straight for the thin leather gloves balled up on his nightstand.

How had something so premeditated, so inevitable turned out so fucked up?

A bitter mix of her frustration and fear lingers. Nothing at all like the heady scent of reckless lust that hit his room before Marie even reached his doorway last night, wearing nothing but satin and hard-won flannel. He wore socks and drawstring pants with an open front. The gloves he'd bought were in the drawer with the condoms.

So premeditated.

"Can't sleep after all, sugar," she said, toes sliding up her ankle. Fanned out the cards. "Wanna finish our game?" All they did, day and night, was play games. Lively games over arbitrary spoils. Them-vs.-it games, her-vs.-him games. Teasing games with pointed words and arched looks. Cat and mouse games from taunting proximities. Look but don't touch games. Just an hour before, Texas Hold 'Em in front of a fireplace Marie complained was too hot. She stripped her shirt and added it to the pot.

So inevitable.

No need to keep score, he told her, since she was standing in his doorway. He'd won. Marie let the deck fly as she padded to his bed. He sat back, letting her crawl on top. "Still can't touch," she replied, a warning and a challenge. In the clear light of day, Logan can pinpoint that as the moment when sass and daring faltered.

He liked her in the lead; he liked the way her scent kaleidoscoped as she felt out the angles, what exactly she could get away with. A part of him recognized her seduction as an act. It never occurred to him that she wouldn't eventually be able to bluff her way through the real thing. Yet, for all her enthusiasm, her pace was uncertain, her groping hesitant. Even he, to whom self-denial is a particular sort of pleasure, couldn't take the fumbling. It aged him.

When he had her on her back, awkwardly rubbing against his leather-encased fingers, he traced a nipple through cotton, slid his shirt to the side. He bent his head, his breath just a whisper against the skin of her breast.

And she flinched. An accusatory, condemnatory full-body flinch.

"Don't – Just don't touch me," she groaned, trying to bring back the rhythm. A half-hearted and futile attempt. Nothing to do but back away, because this time he couldn't get past taking it personal. Her breathless apologies were on behalf of her skin. The hands clutching his button-down closed to the collar, though, that couldn't be aimed at anyone but him.

Stumbling out of his bed, Marie made the defeated walk back up her loft. Leaving Logan alone with a slicken pair of gloves and a hard-on that hadn't waned despite stomach-turning rejection. Even under the spray of cold water, he had to finish himself off. Marie wasn't a new subject of his masturbatory fantasies, but this was…

So fucked up.

Fallen cards mock him with unfulfilled possibilities as he shoves himself into his jeans and buttons up his shirts.

Biscuits and gravy, saran-wrapped to keep warm, are set out on the kitchen table for him, along with a note telling him Marie's gone for a morning walk, wants him to enjoy his breakfast, and has something special planned for dinner if he doesn't mind running into town for her. Her loopy handwriting is cheerful and the biscuits are extra fluffy.

Logan reads between the lines – last night never happened.

Marie hasn't returned by the time he finishes breakfast, not unusual. If he's a little grateful, a little quick to grab his keys, he won't acknowledge it to himself.

It's a solid forty-five minutes to the nearest grocery store, and in that time he decides there are only two ways to defend himself against a twenty-one-year-old vixen with a mean streak and a heavy load of baggage. He can either go back to countering her teasing with gruffness, or he can go on the offensive. Former's the honorable thing, latter's the more appealing. There's a simpler third option, of course, only he's not in the mood for the road.

Quagmire preoccupies him as he walks through Palmer's, crowded for this time of the morning, and starts shopping.

Too easily aggravated, Logan stares down at the plastic bottles in his hands. Hell if he knows the difference between extra-virgin and virgin olive oil, and this week's grocery list of demands, usually so gallingly specific, offers no illumination.

A middle-aged woman in a t-shirt that emblazons "Hockey Mom" across her weighty chest putters around the condiments. For a second, he thinks to ask for her help; then he scowls at himself and slams the extra-virgin back onto the shelf – on principle, he's never been a fan of anything virginal, much less in excess. Hockey Mom gives him a startled once-over and scuttles over to the next aisle to leer at him from a safer distance.

He makes a noise halfway between a growl and a sigh. Six more items. Marie might as well be running a bed and breakfast, way she makes a production out of every meal for two. Calls it practice.

Logan puts a tally in the "appealing" category, remembering the way she winked, longneck Molson Dry dangling from satin-covered fingertips, and told him she was using him as much for his stomach as his wallet. When he asked her if that was all, her lips took on a curve that was wicked in contrast to her wide-eyed expression: "I think of any other use for you, sugar, I'll let you know straight away."

Unrepentant tease.

Boneless chicken breasts are the last thing he picks up before hauling his basket to the checkout line. While Logan has long been an admirer of quality breasts, legs, and thighs, lately it's turned into a preoccupation. Makes it so he can't see straight. Tally for the "honorable" category, questionable motives aside –

"…runaway from the states." A cop just shy of elderly stands at the till, holding up a photograph to the store owner, Mac Palmer.

Logan can only see the back of the picture, but his blood runs cold so he knows. All this time, not a mention in any newspaper, not a blip on any radar – but he knows.

"Name's Anna Marie D'Ancanto. Would've had a Southern accent. She might've passed through here just over three weeks ago. Held up a bar in Laughlin City, took two grand."

"Two grand?" Mac whistles lowly.

Twenty-two hundred, Marie might've corrected, if she were here. But she hasn't left his property since he brought her there. She can't be recognized. He has to repeat that to himself.

"What makes you think she made her way through High Level?"

"Girl was seen heading west in a blue and white truck with man in his thirties the morning after the incident."

Another low whistle. "Little girls and old bastards, no good ever came of that. No sign of 'em?"

"Truck was found burning on the highway just east of here, no remains." The officer's responses so far sound like he's memorized the police blotter, but there's more personal interest in his tone when he pushes the picture forward. "Take a good look. This girl ran away from a clinic. She's a mutant and she's dangerous."

Mac shakes his head slowly. "No, like I said, doesn't look familiar."

"All right, Mr. Palmer. I got flyers, mind if I leave 'em for you to hang?"

"Sure, sure. Mm. What a business."

Logan watches the officer out of the store, trying to guess where he'll go next and how far the search has spread. If the law's just now getting around to checking in High Level, seems likely that the clinic got word and is applying pressure. That means Marie has a shrinking window of opportunity to get to the western edge of Canada and across the boarder into Alaska without being seen.

None of the usual chitchat from Mac as he rings up Logan's groceries, owing to the grimace etched deep in his face.

Dollars to donuts, the officer has his name, too, only he forgot to mention it. Next place, he might not forget, and a certain few people around town are in a position to put "Wolverine" together with "blue and white truck" and come up with general directions to his cabin. Marie could hide, maybe, but it's better if she goes. No call for her getting anymore attached to an old bastard like him.

An extra stop before he heads back up to the cabin. The fake redhead behind the counter at the drug store glares at him over her magazine as he comes in through the automatic doors. First and last time he beds a woman in a town he actually plans to be seen in more than once a decade. He glances toward the bulletin board. No flyer yet.

The hair dye takes up four shelves on the back wall. He's drawn to the shades of red, but Pauline's brown-to-maroon fiasco makes him think twice. He goes for blonde instead, a honey tone he thinks might be pretty on Marie. He grabs her shampoo and conditioner and throws in a razor, just so his purchase is less noticeable.

Pauline's register is the only one open. He nods as he sets down Marie's stuff.

No two ways about it, from the plunging neckline to the paste-on nails, Pauline is stripper-by-night trashy. Logan's entertained enough trash to be an expert at recognizing it. Only sort of woman he ever seems to attract.

She flips over the razor to find the barcode. "How's the little thing you got secluded up in the mountains?"

He sets his jaw. Pauline worked when he bought things for Marie before. She made a crack about her being young because of some acne-fighting face wash, though, from the looks of it, Pauline could use some herself. Logan's no good at guessing ages, but she's got to have at least a decade on Marie. Probably more, now that it's on his mind.

"Can't be doin' well. Roots're showin' through." She rings up the hair dye with savage delight, then pauses at the shampoo. "You know this is for brunettes? Says it right here on the label. I'm happy to read it for you, since I know you can't. Or maybe you just can't read numbers."

Logan's only half-listening to her digs. Shit. That cop is going to walk through this door eventually, and Pauline is going to make his case.

He thinks of doing something drastic. Decides it won't accomplish anything useful, personal satisfaction aside.

"Just ring it up."

"No cause to be rude." Pauline finishes the transaction with her trap closed, and Logan takes the plastic bag out to his black GMC and drops it on top of the groceries.

As he's driving out of town he sees a cop car parked outside Sam's, a garage he once ordered parts for his old truck through. If the shit hasn't already hit the fan, it will soon. But there's time, the afternoon at least. If they know Marie, then they know they'll need plenty of reinforcements.

On the drive back to the cabin, his mind is occupied by escape routes. Marie could take the pickup, but he's got two choppers left and either one would be less recognizable. He taught her to ride his '53 Harley-Davidson Panhead and was impressed with how quick she took to it. She laughed – fair enough, motorcycles are easier to drive than jets. She can handle it on the open road. Put her in that helmet he never uses, and she'll be about as inconspicuous as she can get.

A tree right on the edge of the dirt road to his cabin gives him an idea. Pulling the pickup into park, he pops out his claws and walks over. Five hard, pressure-releasing swipes and he's whittled the base enough that he can topple the tree over and onto the road with a shove of his foot.

He gets back into his pickup. That should buy Marie a little time. Ground's hard enough that she can off-road with the Harley until she gets to the back roads, and if there's water left in the creek she can fly the damn thing across it.

Logan runs a hand through his hair. The lumberjacking helped, but anxiety's got him again by the time he stops outside the cabin. Marie's in there, and he has to tell her to leave. Twenty-five days ago, he wouldn't have recognized the feeling at the pit of his stomach. Now he can name it: regret.

Nothing for it.

* * *

Hanging the grocery bags from his arms, Logan makes his way up the porch. The second he has the door open, he breathes in the smells of wood varnish, pond water, and Marie. He catches himself off guard by wondering how long it'll take for the Marie smell to fade and how long he'll be sniffing around for it after it's gone.

He can't break the news, thinking like that. Shouldn't be thinking like that, regardless. Logan's never had any designs on her future beyond the very near present.

The volume of the music coming from the back porch increases, and Marie's voice, rich and jazzy, if off-key, fills the cabin in bursts of enthusiasm that trail off into hums: "'Mississippi, in the middle of a dry spell. Jimmy Rogers, hm, hm, hmhm, up high …'"

Logan lets her serenade him while he deals with the groceries. Normally, he'd have her do it so she could earn the five bucks, but game's up and he's stalling for time. Food he'll probably end up throwing out later put away, he sets aside the box of hair dye and heads to the porch.

"Marie – "

The rest of his words die in his throat. The screen door hits against his arm. She's wearing nothing but a pink bra and panties, still damp, so he can watch the crack of her ass as she shakes it to the beat of the guitar solo. Seems Marie's cheerfulness isn't about pretending last night never happened; she's bound and determined to get another shot at him.

"Just a minute, sugar," she says without turning around, dipping her brush into the bucket. "I just want to finish this one spot around the molding." With that, she stretches to her tip-toes, lengthening her legs and lifting her ass.

Unrepentant tease, he thinks again, this time with a new apprehension. The girl in front of him will do a lot of things for money, and he can't help but wonder what she'll fall back on when waitressing doesn't let her put away the savings she'll need.

Marie sways as she paints, belting out, "'Black velvet and that little boy's smile. Black velvet in that slow, Southern style.''" She spins on the canvas and drops to the balls of her feet, flecking clear varnish and bringing the handle of the paintbrush up like a microphone. "'A new religion that'll bring 'em to your knees. Black velvet – '" Eyes scrunched closed, index finger up like Aretha Franklin, she pauses.

Logan remembers a girl covered neck to toe as he tries to figure how much he can blame himself for this transformation and whether or not she'll remember him fondly for it.

"'If you please,'" Marie croons, bringing her body down with her finger so that gravity almost forces her breasts from her see-through bra. With a flourish, she snaps back up, posing and grinning at him like a gymnast who just stuck the landing for a gold.

He's leaned back against the doorframe, scowl in place. "Ain't you supposed to have a pole for that kinda dance?"

Marie drops her hands to her hips and pretends to pout. "If you didn't like the show, you can at least appreciate that your porch is finally getting weather-proofed. That'll bring my total to one thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven dollars." Pout turns into a grin. "And forty-two cents."

"Uh-huh. Eight cents if you can tell me why you're weather-proofin' naked and have it make sense."

"I'm not naked, Logan." She hooks her thumb under the string of her panties. "No different than a bathing suit. See?"

"I'm seein' plenty."

She tugs at the end of her long, brown ponytail, straightening out the wet waves. "Anythin' you like?"

He trails his eyes up and down flawlessly creamy, agonizingly untouchable skin. Calf to crown, a flush spreads where his eyes touch. The uneven rise and fall of her breasts is particularly compelling. Lust quickly replaces varnish as the dominant smell in the room.

Marie clears her throat delicately. The curve of her mouth turns from sweet to smug.

"You're gettin' fat," he says, lying through his teeth. The leanness he attributed to the road has persisted, forcing him to wonder if that means she still has a time to go before she fills out.

Her smile widens, and she gives him a new angle of her breasts. "Thanks for noticing, sugar."

She bends down to turn off the radio, and his eyes go straight to the juncture between her thighs, then drop to the wide strips of scar tissue that run down the upper portion of both her legs. Surgical, Marie admitted, though she refused to say more. Southaven, obviously. Doctors might not have laid their actual hands on her, even so, they left their marks plain enough.

She needs to go.

"I'll have you know, I wasn't lying in wait." Tone casual now, she straightens and explains, "I just got out of the pond and figured I'd jump right back in to wash off when I'm done. Completely logical, so don't you try to accuse me of any scheming – and I want my eight cents."

"Marie, get dressed."

The playfulness vanishes from her face. "Why?"

"Because I need to talk to you, and I can't do it with you lookin' like that." He leaves the porch. She's behind him before the door can close.

"Talk to me about what? Logan, what happened?"

"Get dressed."

"Close your eyes, if you can't talk to me like an adult. It's not like you haven't seen it."

She's right at his back, anger making her forget to keep her distance. Turning, his hands go to her head. He lets down her hair and arranges it over her shoulders. Lust turns to nervousness as he knew it would, because Marie can't watch his bare hands moving behind her head.

Logan tilts her head back, gently. Bends down so they're breathing the same air. "Kiss won't kill me," he murmurs. Have her like any other woman, he tells himself, and he won't feel so much like a molester.

Tentatively, she raises fingernails to his beard, lightly brushing where the hair is thickest. "You still don't believe me. I'll take from you, Logan, and you'll hate me for it."

"Don't – "

She stops him with a frustrated noise. "You're not getting it. My skin is literally pulling me toward you. It wants me to touch you. I can't control it, if I do. I know what I'm talking about. You'll hate me," she repeats, brown eyes searching his.

"What I will or won't do is up to me, darlin'." The endearment sounds harsh even to his ears.

Her shoulders slump. "I'm sorry. I've told you, I'm a terrible tease. I just – I…like being with you."

Back to feeling like that old bastard again. Carefully, he pulls her in so that her face is pressed against his flannel shirt. She doesn't relax but she doesn't flinch away, either.

"Listen, there's somethin' I have to tell you." Logan rubs her hair as soothingly as he can manage. "A cop came into Palmer's today with a picture of you." He tightens his grip as she sucks in a gasp. "He had flyers to put up, and he was askin' a lot of questions. Sooner or later, someone's gonna recognize my description, and he'll be up here lookin' for you." She tries to pull away, already knows what's coming. "Marie. Stop, Marie. Listen to me – Marie, you have to go. You have to go now."

"Okay!" She shoves away from him. "You don't have to be so mean about it."

Logan isn't being mean, and he thinks she knows. But she's crying already and trying to cover it up with anger. She stands in front of him in her underwear, hair hanging down in a tangle, palm over her mouth. "What – what do I do?"

"Take the Panhead. I blocked the road comin' up here, so you'll have to go through the back way. In my closet, there's a pack you can put the essentials in. I got twenty-five hundred dollars handy, plus what I already paid you. It's yours. Get on the road, drive north, then cut west. Ditch the bike, fly if you have to. Just get across that border."

Marie nods stiffly, eyes on the walls she sanded and refinished. "And you…You're staying here."

"I can buy you a lot of time if I let them take me in. Tell them you're headed to Toronto or somethin'."

Another stiff nod.

"Look it, I'll come find you in Anchorage, once it's safe. Make sure you're on your feet. I pr – "

"No. No promises." She's looking him square in the eye now. "I don't keep mine, so how can I expect you to keep yours?"

Logan's answer is a growl: "You can damn well trust me, that's how."

But she doesn't trust him; it's written all over her face. Not when it comes to her skin and not when it comes to her future.

"I'll see you if I see you. I can't trust much more than that."

"Kid – "

Marie laughs incredulously, gesturing down at herself. "We're back to that, are we?" She throws up her hands to stave off his retort. "Sorry, sorry. I'm…going to get dressed and packed. When I come back out, I'll be properly thankful to you."

"I'm not lookin' for any big show of gratitude," he grumbles.

"I know you're not. But you're giving me a lot when you owe me nothing. I may be young, but I do have a sense of proportion." She thumps down the hallway. "Under five minutes, you watch. I'm good at running, sugar."

A lump rises at the base of Logan's throat and it takes an effort to swallow it back. Hell. He thinks perversely, Marie has to leave sometime – better now with a purpose than later with a grudge.


	11. Breathe, chapter 2

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**LONG YOU LIVE AND HIGH YOU FLY / BUT IF YOU RIDE THE TIDE**

"_I told you I was dangerous, and I told you I was a liar. _

_But I wasn't a monster until they made me one."_

– _Rogue –_

Face freshly scrubbed, Rogue carries Logan's hiking pack and her cloak to the edge of the den, where he sits in front of his antique television. The first time she joined him on the couch for a hockey game, Guff let her know in so many words that the stand alone would fetch a pretty penny at auction. When she told Logan, he shrugged – price was nothing to the object itself, its familiarity. Its possible connection to the unknown before.

Rogue longs to give him something of hers, but all she owns belongs to him, except the clothes on her back and a dead woman's dog tags. She sighs. The truth she could give him, but what would be the point? She couldn't begin to untangle the knots she's tied to impress him.

"Eleven minutes," Logan says, flicking through the few channels he gets.

"Four minutes and forty-nine seconds," she amends, choosing a random time. "Bathroom doesn't count."

He nods toward the coffee table she repaired with David's help, at a plate of food and a box of hair dye. "Don't know if you want that."

Dropping her armload on the floor by the couch, she picks up the box. It's uncanny, how right the shade is. Carol blonde. "I'll keep it just in case," she answers, sitting as she opens the pack to shove it in. "I'll use it when I need to."

She holds the plate over her lap, shifting around leftover fried dumplings with her fork.

"Not much of a farewell meal," he says with a slight grimace. "But at least it's your cooking, not mine."

"Don't give me credit, thank my momma. I never even bothered to learn," she tells him inexplicably, talking a big bite. That could be an opening to the explanation he deserves. Still, she hesitates.

It hasn't quite sunk in, the fact that she's leaving. She waits for a last-second reprieve. Strong words aside, she can't bring herself to believe this is the end. She's happy here, giving Logan a hard time but taking care of him all the same. And she's almost there. So close to being comfortable enough in her own toxic skin to be a human being for once. Last night was just a setback…Or she's kidding herself.

The man on her right doesn't offer any answers. He's not even looking at her, rather to the clock sitting on the mantle underneath a set of curved swords. Could be worrying about her, could just be wanting her gone. No way of telling.

If Logan's still a mystery and Rogue's still a fraud, then the past three weeks can't have amounted to much more than a delusion.

_Don't say I didn't warned you, Anna Marie. Trouble never tells you how Trouble thinks. Just because he never forced you doesn't mean he never did you harm._

Some opinions never change, some voices never fade.

Rogue looks to the TV to get herself out of her head. Logan's stopped on the news. A silver-haired man waves to a crowd of protesters hefting signs, one of which reads, "Send mutants to the moon for ever!" Bunch of geniuses.

"State of the world I'm about to return to," she complains, and asks Logan to turn it up.

"…the missing New York senator was last seen at a press conference two days ago, where he continued to voice his support for the United States' proposed Mutant Registration Act."

The large-toothed anchorwoman is replaced by footage of the senator standing behind an outside podium. The bottom of the screen tells Rogue that his name is Senator Robert Kelly, a Republican. She leans forward, something about his face nagging her.

He speaks loudly and emphatically: "I was once guilty of thinking small, believing that a tough American stance on mutants would be enough. But if any good has come of last month's narrowly avoided terrorist attack on Ellis Island, it is that the world's eyes are open to the danger that mutants pose."

With a jolt, Rogue remembers similar words from an identical voice. Senator Kelly has visited Southaven, she's sure of it.

"That is why I have worked so diligently to get the UN Summit back on track and refocused purely on the mutant phenomenon. The Mutant Registration Act, where passed, will protect the lives of every citizen of the world by preventing dangerous mutant attacks. Now is not the time for fear. Now is the time for the leaders of the world to unite as one against this grave new threat."

The anchorwoman takes a moment to shuffle her papers, as if she, too, realizes the contradictions inherent in that gem of a hate speech. "Hours before the announcement of Senator Kelly's disappearance, mutants' rights activists released a statement that took issue with the Senator's claim, arguing that the mutant responsible for the failed Ellis Island plot, Telford Porter, aka Vanisher, planned to plant ordinary explosive devices. FBI representatives have confirmed that Porter, currently awaiting trial, has been questioned regarding the whereabouts of Senator Kelly. Officials say that the UN Summit will take place on Saturday as rescheduled, though many world leaders, including our own Prime Minister Allaire, are reportedly reconsidering their invitations in – "

Logan clicks the power button without warning. He stands, walking to the window, clearly listening intently to noise from outside. As quietly as she can, Rogue slips her cloak over her shoulders. Shoulda, woulda, coulda left sooner. Her heart is thumping so fast, she thinks she can hear it.

Wait. Was that…"A helicopter? Jesus – They have the army after me!" She snatches open the curtain, scanning the woods for Mounties, too.

"Get out of the window." He tries to pull her back.

Rogue pushes his arms away. She wants to see the soldiers jump out before she makes her move. Through the roof, she thinks wildly. They'll try to shoot her down and that'll give her enough adrenaline to get far away. Of course, if they don't miss, if they don't kill her, they'll have her. Back to Southaven, back to the tests, the skin samples, the animals, the people, the dead – Take Logan's powers, her treacherous brain tells her. There's no nobility in survival, and if she kills him she'll live forever.

"Agh!" she groans, pressing her elbows to her head and falling into a crouch. The dark and the monster – she can't fight them both at once. She knows she can't.

Metal sings. Rogue opens her eyes to three of Logan's claws. Hazel eyes meet hers and say, wordlessly, "No one's taking you anywhere." She nods, believing. The darkness recedes and the monster crawls back in it.

The helicopter is low enough to be seen now. It makes waves in the big pond as it prepares to land. Navy blue with an American flag painted on the side. But…that's wrong.

"This can't be what we think." Rogue lets him help her to her feet slowly, counting the stars and stripes to be sure. "This would be a violation of international airspace, and, seriously, I am not that important."

The door of the helicopter opens. They see a briefcase first, then a business suit with a woman inside. Short black hair windblown, she ducks her head slightly as she strides gracefully toward the cabin. She smiles when she sees them in the window, slides off her large black sunglasses to reveal blue-tinged skin.

A mutant. Rogue leans back against Logan in relief. He remains wary, lifting his claws against he window. The mutant businesses woman continues to smile. Holds up her briefcase like a white flag.

Rogue looks up at Logan. "I think she comes in peace."

Reluctantly, he follows her to the porch, where he opens the door for the visitor, barking, "Who the hell are you?"

Over the roar of the helicopter, the woman yells, "My name is Sheryl Maxwell. I'm a representative from the International Mutant Rights Initiative in the States. I need a moment of your time."

"Lady, do I look like I wanna subscribe to any newsletter?"

Ms. Maxwell's smile gets toothier. "We don't exactly deliver our materials door to door by helicopter, Mr.…"

"Logan."

"Mr. Logan." Her attention falls on Rogue, who he's trying to block from the doorway. "I'm actually here to speak to Miss D'Ancanto about Southaven Mutant Treatment Clinic. We'd very much like hear her story."

Rogue's eyes widen.

"Yeah? And what if she ain't interested?"

She dips under his arm to talk to Ms. Maxwell directly. "You're pressing charges?"

"We're setting a trial date as we speak. We need your testimony, regarding the death of Captain Danvers. We know it wasn't your fault."

Rogue's hands clutch the dog tags hanging underneath her scarf. Yes, yes, finally – Somebody. The story tumbles out of her, most of it probably lost to the noise of helicopter blades, some of it unvoiced. "Carol chose to be there because they said they could cure her, but nothing was working – " She wanted to serve her country more than she wanted to fly with the wind in her face – "She didn't get a cure, she got me. She was in a coma, and her parents came every day – " With model airplanes and daffodils and – Here she pauses. How to explain without sounding…"The doctors kept pushing. It wasn't my fault." End at the beginning, the only way.

Logan's arms are wrapped around her elbows, she realizes, holding her up.

Ms. Maxwell is nodding, something hard in her eyes. "Good, Rogue. Good. Our lawyers will take your deposition – that is, if you and your…" Her sharp smile returns. "…guardian? Will consent to coming with us to New York. I understand you're both wanted by Canadian authorities."

Rogue flushes, blinking back tears. Can she still testify? Will anyone else believe her? Does this woman really? "I – Hold on, Ms. Maxwell." She tries to push Logan inside. He's a brick wall.

Ms. Maxwell frowns. "We don't have much time."

"Just one minute, I need to get my stuff," Rogue replies. To Logan: "Please."

He steps back and lets the screen door shut, leading her into the den. She stands over his hiking pack, twisting the ends of her gloves. "You gotta tell me what to do. I'm too shaky to see stupid right now."

Logan sizes her up for what feels like forever. "What does she mean 'guardian?' I don't like the way she said that."

"Who cares! She's a way out for both of us. But – " Rogue is trying to think like him, and it's hard because he's not in her head and the possibility of vindication is something she doesn't want to ignore. "But is it too convenient? Logan! Stop looking at me like that and tell me what to do!"

"How the hell should I know?" he growls, shoving his index finger in her face. "You've fed me nothin' but lies. You're a goddamn minor! You were never in the army." He grabs hold of Carol's dog tags, bringing her shock close to his fury. "You held her until she died – interestin' choice of words. You ever say anythin' straight?"

She wants to slap him. Her arms hang loosely. She's dead inside, but it's not her own death she feels. "I told you I was dangerous, and I told you I was a liar. But I wasn't a monster until they made me one."

His blunt fury twists into a grimace. "Marie, you ain't a monster. You're just – "

Rogue is on the ground, glass raining down on her, before she can find out just what she is.

* * *

Hand to her neck where the chain to Carol's dog tags snapped, she scrambles to the gaping window – punched through and ripped out. Her heart leaps into her throat. Logan is sprawled out on the far grass and leaning over him is Fangs.

Bait! She was bait.

"Leave him alone!" she screams, hurling herself from the window frame despite adrenaline-offsetting nausea.

A strong yank on her ankle drops her flat on her stomach.

Rogue twists painfully to her side, a dark blue face with glittering golden eyes coming into focus. Same toothy smile.

Dark, angry storm clouds gather overhead, faster than Rogue has ever seen. A big, black jet fills the sky. Thunder cracks, and the blue woman straightens like she's been whipped.

Moment taken, Rogue's on her feet and fighting against the sudden wind, succeeding about as well as the helicopter. Half-sprinting, half-flying she's trying to get to Logan before Fangs can load his unconscious body into the helicopter, which is off the ground but at the mercy of the jostling wind.

"Leave him, you idiot!" she hears the pilot scream, a sure sign they're cutting their losses.

Lightening strikes, hitting the ground at Fangs' feet, causing him to drop Logan off his back like a sack of flour. Rogue is there in an instant, dragging, carrying Logan through the cold, blinding wind and into the woods, where the brush is thick enough to hide him.

As abruptly as it started, the wind dies.

Jet engines and helicopter blades – former sounds like it's landing, latter as if it's unsteadily rising. Rogue is too far into the woods to see the helicopter until it's cleared the cabin, escaping protracted beams of red light.

Lips near Logan's left ear, she hisses, "Wake up." With her gloved thumbs and forefingers, she opens his eyelids. His eyes are rolled far back. Rogue knows comatose when she sees it. Looks like she's in charge.

Twigs snap as the owners of the black jet enter the forest.

A woman's voice, lightly accented, calls out, "Hello? If you can hear us, we're here to help you."

"We're from Charles Xavier's school for mutants in New York," a man's voice explains. "We want to bring you back with us. We can protect you from them."

Biting her bottom lip, Rogue weighs her options. New York is where the blue woman said she wanted to take them, so New York is probably the last place Logan should be. Then again, if he's been found twice, he can certainly be found a third time. And these people gave up the advantage in the fight to make sure that she and Logan were safe.

Okay. Shooting Logan a look begging for forgiveness if this goes wrong, she stands. A black woman with snow white hair and a brown-haired white man with something covering his eyes are few feet away. Both are decked head to toe in leather.

The oddity of it all gives Rogue a strange confidence. "Excuse me," she shouts out. The leather-clad would-be heroes turn. "You've tried to rescue us twice now. Mind if I ask why?"

"Stay right there," the man says, putting out a steadying hand as the two jog over. "Are you hurt?"

"Me, I'm peachy," she says. "He's unconscious."

The woman kneels beside Logan, gingerly feeling around his thick skull. "He seems unharmed. Perhaps he fainted."

Rogue tilts back her head and laughs. "Please ask him that when he wakes up and please, oh, please, let me be there when you do."

The man looks like he wants to check Rogue for head injuries. "Do you know what's going on?"

"I know that about three weeks ago a giant fanged mutant attacked Logan and you were there, but I got us away. Now Fangs is back, with a blue woman who tried to trick me and Logan into coming with her to New York."

"He's Logan. You're…"

Her eyebrows come together. "I'm Rogue. The blue woman knew exactly who I am. Didn't you find us from the police report?"

"What police report?" the woman asks. When Rogue doesn't reply, she turns to the man. "Scott – This is Mr. Summers. I'm Ms. Munroe."

"That's what we ask the students to call us to our faces, anyway." Guy's got an awfully nice smile. It almost makes up for the absurdly bulky eyewear he's sporting. "Behind our backs, it's Cyclops and Storm."

That explains the weather patterns. What an excellent mutation.

"We need to return to New York quickly. This man needs medical treatment and she…" Storm turns to Rogue. "How old are you, Rogue?"

The lie is on the tip of her tongue, but a glance at Logan stops it. "Seventeen."

Cyclops looks sharply at the man at her feet. "And he's…" There's something in his tone that's akin to the blue woman's "guardian." An accusation that, catching Logan unaware, infuriated him.

Rogue considers it an act of loyalty to answer firmly and finally, "Looking out for me."

Gently smiling, Storm stands and puts a comforting hand on Rogue's arm. "Now let us look out for both of you. Are there things inside that you would like to get?"

She never actually agreed to come to New York, and Storm must realize this. Rogue lets the duo wait a minute before she acquiesces with a shrug. "Lucky for me, my bag's already packed."

"Hurry up and get it. Storm will go with you." Cyclops is leaning down to get Logan up.

"Uh, careful. He's kinda heavy."

With a long grunt of exertion, Cyclops staggers back to his feet with Logan's arms around his shoulders.

"Told ya."

Through gritted teeth, Cyclops says, "I'll be fine. You two go ahead." With small, deliberate steps, he starts to walk Logan to the jet.

Storm puts a hand on Rogue's back. "We'll take our time," she tells him, going for a shared smile.

Showing himself to be good-humored, if judgmental, Cyclops puffs out a laugh.

Rogue could offer to help, but she's had enough poker nights with Logan to know not to play all her cards at once.

"Did you finish high school, Rogue?" Storm inquires as they walk to the cabin.

"No," she answers simply, but it's enough for Storm to launch into a recruitment speech about all the classes she can take and credits she can earn at their school for mutants. She nods appropriately, but her mind is on the police report.

The moment Storm called its existence into question, Rogue made the leap to denial. It's been three weeks, and now all of a sudden Southaven put two and two together and came up with High Level? Too random. Evidently, the mutants after Logan know enough about Southaven to use her as bait, but they ultimately want Logan. So that means…Well, she doesn't know what that means. But she does know that the blue woman can change her appearance and the only police car she'd seen chasing after them was driven by a large blonde. So.

So the weight's off her chest. Southaven never got word of where she is because the police officer Logan saw was a fake, and there were probably never even any charges pressed against her because half the money she stole belonged to the man she stole it from and the rest was dirty. Plus, the cops never made it to the bar…

Could it be that convoluted and that simple all at once?

"This school," Rogue says suddenly, cutting Storm off mid-sentence. "Sorry. But, you're saying I can go to this school for free. And I'll be safe, because no one will know I'm there." She slings Logan's hiking bag over her shoulders.

"That's right. Our enrollment records are kept private. Many of our students have families who don't know that they are mutants, or families who do know and have ostracized them because of it."

"Put me in the latter camp." Rogue inhales deeply. "And sign me up."

She blows out her breath. There it is, what could turn out to be the second good decision she's made since breaking out of Southaven. Or the next terrible one. But no way she's leaving good decision number one alone with the circus. And this place – other mutants, a roof, three squares, free…might be all right. If not, she can always ask Logan for a ride back to Canada when things die down for him.

Storm is smiling sagely, as if she's proud. A premature evaluation, all things considered. I'm not making wise choices over here, Rogue could tell her. I'm just rolling with the punches.


	12. Breathe, chapter 3

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**LOOK AROUND / AND CHOOSE YOUR OWN GROUND**

"_You're givin' yourself too much credit, kid. Wheels dresses up mutants _

_in black leather and sends 'em out to save the world."_

– _Logan –_

His skin breaks, nothing more than a pinprick, and Logan's off his back and onto his feet. He has the woman with the needle by the throat, holds her down as he scans the sterile, steel room. He's breathing heavily, inhaling latex and disinfectant, fear and Marie.

Logan glances down at the woman, a red-haired doctor with even, white teeth. He pushes her aside. Not a threat.

He follows Marie's faded scent into the long corridor. Logan's never seen the inside of a hospital firsthand, but he can tell this is no ordinary one. This is Southaven, he thinks, and Marie's somewhere inside. Lost in her nightmare.

Ripping off circular patches from his chest – bare even where his tag should sit against his skin – he cautiously pads further on. Steel doors with Xs. No sign of life behind them. Around the corner, an alcove.

_Where's he going?_

There can't be anyone behind him, but he looks anyway. The hallway is still empty, now eerily so. He turns back to the alcove. Multiple images of his torso reflect on glass cases housing leather uniforms. Couldn't be police or military.

An open cabinet catches his eye, and he snags a gray hooded sweatshirt. No shoes. He doesn't know if that will make him more or less conspicuous in this place.

The hallway is endless, but he can follow her scent. It's been at least a half-hour since Marie was down here. Was she hurt? Where did they take –

_Where are you going?_

There's no one there. He's sure there's no one there, but he presses himself against a recess in the wall anyway.

The wall beside him opens to reveal an rounded elevator.

_Over here_.

Marie had been in the elevator. He dashes in before it closes, thinking better of it at the last second. Was it a trap? Had the doctor with the perfect teeth called security? Should've taken her with him. At least with a hostage he'd have leverage.

The elevator slides open, revealing a large wooden hallway with warm lighting and thick rugs. Marie's scent is caught up in dozens of others. Fresh cut flowers, body odor, processed food, lemon-scented cleaners…No blood, no horror.

Whispers follow him, a man's questioning voice. The voice is in Logan's head, words overlapping. _Here. Over here. In here_.

Nowhere to hide from it, he makes a break for what looks like a way out. More voices, echoing naturally off the walls, make him abandon the door for a new hiding spot. Clomping footsteps have his back up against a wooden pillar. He leans around, watching the horde of off-looking adolescents pass by, freely and easily.

A door scrapes against its lock. Logan bounds over furniture to get to it, scanning the hallway as he shuts it behind him.

Movement. Jerking around, he sees a bald man seated behind a desk and half a dozen kids twisted around, staring at him.

"Good afternoon, Logan." The bald man addresses the room, "If there are no more questions…Very good. An excellent final report, well done."

A tall All-American and a mousey brunette stand awkwardly at the front, white note cards in hand. They're younger than Marie – or, hell, maybe they're not. Any rate, she's not there and neither is her scent.

The bald man continues, "That will be all for today. Tomorrow, we'll pick up with the next group."

Students, obviously. Gathering their backpacks and books, they exit the room one by one. The mouse stops and turns back.

"Forgot again, Professor," she murmurs with an embarrassed smile, collecting her shoulder bag from underneath her chair.

"Quite all right, Kitty."

Swiftly, the girl ducks past Logan, not slowing down as she disappears straight through the closed door.

Logan snaps his head back to the bald man, who smiles as he holds up a textbook. "Physics. Another quarter completed. How time presses on, no matter the state of the world." The man pulls away from the desk, still seated. "I'm Professor Charles Xavier. Would you care for a late lunch?"

The pleasantries make his lip curl. "Where am I?"

"Westchester, New York. You were attacked, for the second time. My people brought you here for medical attention."

"I don't need medical attention."

The bald man in the wheelchair, the Professor, stops a few feet away. "Yes, of course."

"Where's my girl?"

The girl, he corrects to himself. Not his. It's okay to be protective, not possessive. Still, there's something animalistic to both – something that doesn't belong in this richly-furnished room that's too small to fit him, in spite of its actual dimensions.

A pause. Xavier leans back in his chair. "Rogue? She's here. She's fine."

"Really?"

Xavier holds Logan's challenging stare. Logan doesn't flinch, though he's restless under the scrutiny. As if, somehow, he's giving away much more than he means to.

It's a relief when the door opens. A man with red-tinted glasses, a woman with white hair, the redheaded doctor, who walks by with a warm grace Logan hasn't seen in a woman since – well, maybe he's never seen a woman walk that way.

Dr. Jean Grey, only one of the bunch with a name that doesn't make him shake his head and laugh. Cyclops, Storm, Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth. Dr. Jean Grey. He likes that. Suits the tall woman with the librarian neckline and the red pencil shirt. Classy.

Too bad about the company she keeps. Schools for mutants, brewing wars, dumbass nicknames.

With a derisive smile, Logan looks back at Xavier. "And what do they call you – Wheels? This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

All he wants to do is ditch the loonies and check on Marie, but Logan's held up at the door by the humorless clench-jaw in the shades. "Cyclops, right?" He grabs him forcibly by the shirt. "Wanna get out of my way?"

Irritatingly enough, Cyclops doesn't twitch an eyebrow. Merely looks around him, apparently unable to do anything without the go-ahead from Xavier.

"Logan. It's been almost fifteen years, hasn't it? Living from day to day, moving from place to place. With no memory of who or what you are."

His eyes dart around, how could he – Logan's voice is barely a hiss: "Shut up."

That stare again. The one that knows too much. "Give me a chance. I may be able to help you find some answers."

Voice still failing him, he breathes, "How do you know?"

_You're not the only one with gifts_. The same whispered questions from earlier.

Logan's head jerks up and around before falling back the Professor. A newfound respect and interest in his expression, he asks, "What is this place?"

Excusing his people to get back to their classes, Xavier leads Logan on a tour of the half-converted mansion. Kitchen, security, back gardens – it's not lost on him that everywhere Professor Xavier's traveling story time goes, Marie's faded scent is there to reassure him. Smoke and mirrors, far as Logan's concerned, until he sees for himself that she's safe.

It's as if – Strike that. Knowing his impatience, Xavier guides him back inside, to a classroom where Marie sits uncharacteristically hunched. Through a windowed door, Logan studies her profile as she studies the others in the room.

"The students are mostly runaways," Xavier explains. "Frightened, alone. Some with gifts so extreme they've become a danger to themselves and those around them. Like your friend Rogue."

That again. He's annoyed. It's not Marie who's dangerous, it's everybody telling her she is that's doing the real harm.

"Incapable of physical, human contact, probably for the rest of her life."

The casual certainty annoys him further. She's not the kind to be written off so easily.

Xavier continues, "And yet here she is, with others her own age."

A twinge passes through Logan's shoulder blades.

Neutral tone intact, Xavier finishes, "Learning, being accepted. Not feared."

He can see the truth of that, at least, for himself. The ironically-named mouse holding hands with the All-American leans across a gum-snapping Asian girl dressed in yellow to ask Marie a question; showoff kid with a lighter tries to gets her attention, but All-American turns his fireball into shattered ice. Marie sits up straighter, tugging at her gloves.

"What'll happen to her?" The same question he was asking himself just hours before – not so long ago, but a lifetime away from this place.

"Well, that's up to her," Xavier replies. "Rejoin the world as an educated young woman, or stay on to teach others. To become what the children have affectionately called 'X-Men.'"

Gum-snapper throws up a handful of sparklers, lips clearly reading, "It's Jubilee. You'll want to know me." She winks. Behind Marie's answering smile is a flinch waiting to happen.

Logan forces himself to turn away, raising an eyebrow at the question he doesn't have to ask aloud – X-Men?

Xavier nods, wheeling around to move down the hallway. "But the school is merely our public face," he clarifies. "The lower levels are an entirely different matter."

Who the hell has a jet? he recalls asking Marie. Now they know, and the explanation is almost as unfathomable as guessing in the dark. Vigilante justice, good versus evil, the end of days. Logan listens without comment, looks over the uniforms, trots through stables, admires the car collection – admires the leggy doctor sitting pretty next to Lockjaw.

None of it does anything for him. He's not stirred, no doubt the intention of the monologue. Bitter cynicism is all he can feel, because his bones are weighed down by the very worst of humanity and his own mutation proves them right – he's something other than human. Feral. An animal. Not his words, but it's as much an exercise in frustration trying to place the voice as it would be to get drawn into all this superhero bullshit.

Find out what Marie wants to do, then Logan's more than ready to get the fuck out of Dodge.

The Professor once again proves himself a step ahead. "I'll make you a deal, Logan. Give me forty-eight hours to find out what Magneto wants with you, and I give you my word that I will use all my power to help you piece together what you've lost. And what you're looking for."

Cryptic. Manipulative, even. Still, it's a decent proposition. No amount of clawing can penetrate his thick skull. Only someone like the Professor can peel back the layers and tell him what's so atrocious that his brain has to keep it from him.

So he'll stay.

Citing a meeting with someone called McCoy, Xavier leaves Logan to make himself at home. Laughable suggestion. Place is a zoo – worse, it's a freak show without the gasping audience. Surreal to see so many mutations used so openly. Nothing vicious in it, either. Just kids enjoying their gifts.

Gifts.

Not in the real world. Sure, kids look content enough now to learn tolerance and self-control, but he'd bet his balls no one on the other side is teaching the same, even now. Marie is proof enough of that.

Logan's made his way to Marie's classroom just as it's emptying out. A young girl with bushy blonde hair falters when she sees him. He raises an eyebrow, but it takes the decisive pop of chewing gum to get her moving again. What's her name, Jubilee, sends him a wink, gaze roaming freely as she struts by. Where does she think she is, a honky tonk? Does he have a sign on his forehead: "Jailbait, drop your panties here?"

He scowls as the rest of the brats edge to the safety of the hallway, their eyes darting none too subtly to his hands. A crack of his knuckles sends the stragglers skittering. Oddly satisfying.

Marie's still inside the classroom, talking to the teacher. Storm's another looker. Delicate, though. Serene.

"I didn't know there were places like this," Marie is saying.

Storm smiles gently. "I don't think there are very many places like this."

"And the Professor…He can fix my mutation?"

Christ. The nervous hope on her about knocks him dizzy.

Doubt and pity flicker across Storm's face. "I don't think that it quite works that way."

Marie ducks her head. The movement draws Storm's attention to Logan, arms folded across his chest. Look on his face can't be pleasant, yet her expression is welcoming.

"Rogue, look who's here."

Pivoting slowly, Marie keeps her eyes on the floor as she trails Storm to the door. Absurdly young – he knew it first thing he saw her sitting on that bar stool. Way she looks now, taking little steps, bowing her head, clutching her books to her well-covered chest, makes him the biggest fool and the worst lecher.

* * *

He barely hears Storm's invitation for Marie to join her for tea in the greenhouse later, barely notes her exit

Simple fact is, Logan doesn't know the fidgeting girl in front of him, though he recognizes her as the same girl who dashed from his bed last night. He knows the one who climbed in better, the one with the smart mouth and the wicked saunter. The liar.

Logan shifts his weight, drops his arms to his sides. "Hey."

Marie tilts her chin up, squinting at him like she's looking into the sun. A little of the liar lingers around the curve of her lip. "Did I screw up again, or is this place okay?"

"It's fine. You like it here?"

"Oh, well, gee. Ms. Munroe's a swell teacher and the other kids are awful nice." She rocks on the sides of her feet. "You should enroll. Be my lab partner."

Letting out a laugh, he notes the domed stained-glass ceiling. "Yeah. It's not my style, either."

"At least you'll be safe here. Rescuing you was getting to be a hassle."

He quirks an eyebrow at her. "That so?"

"That is so." She shifts her books. "How long are you staying?"

"Couple of days. You?"

"I haven't decided yet. You'll give me a lift if I need one?"

Her fidgeting has got to stop, she's making his fingers twitch. He clasps his hands behind his back. "Sure, kid."

Marie winces. "I'm seventeen, by the way. Not quite a kid."

Close enough. He suspected, but he never smelt the lie on her. Her talent or his fault? His eyes fall on the scuffed toes of her tennis shoes. What a bastard. What a blind, opportunistic, old bastard.

"I'm sorry, Logan."

"You ain't the only one who screwed up."

"My daddy told me to always apologize first. You get to take the moral high ground, and you're more likely to be forgiven." She focuses what passes for a smile on the wall behind his shoulder. "Of course, he ended up kicking me out, so maybe not foolproof advice." Her hand goes to her scarf and the tags underneath.

"Didn't mean to break that," he tells her. Should've kept his temper. Marie doesn't deserve what he said.

"How come yours is gone?"

He shrugs. Victory spoil for Sabretooth, most likely. Logan plans on taking it back and then some.

Marie chews on her lip and the silence between them for a long moment. "The Air Force thing, that's all Carol. But the other stuff was true. Nine months ago, I was daddy's little Southern belle, then I was mutant and I got sent to Southaven." She meets his eye. "It's a sick place. I wouldn't lie about that. I tried to run away so many times. It was like a big joke to the nurses. They'd ask me when I was going 'rogue' again. Really funny, mocking someone you're terrified of."

Behind his back, he clenches his right hand around his left wrist. He holds level with her watery stare.

"I told Dr. Grey – You know she goes in front of Congress all the time? – She said she'd look into it for me, but…I don't know if she likes me very much. I mean, she wasn't mean or anything. She just asked me not to touch anyone. Very politely."

"I wouldn't take it personal."

"Did they make a point to ask you not to claw anyone? Didn't think so." Marie rests her chin on the top of her books. "Great. Biggest freak in the freak show."

"You're givin' yourself too much credit, kid. Wheels dresses up mutants in black leather and sends 'em out to save the world."

Marie laughs, and Logan unclenches his fingers slowly, feeling the blood rush back into his hand.

"'X-Men,'" she agrees archly.

The click of heels and the scent of perfume makes Logan turn slightly. Jean's enjoying a private smile as she makes her way toward them, the fireball kid trailing behind her.

"Hello again," she says, fixing her smile on him and then Marie.

"Hi, Dr. Grey," Marie mummers, shoulders hunched.

"If you wouldn't mind, Logan, the Professor asked me to take a few x-rays. It might help us understand why Magneto is after you."

"My bones are covered in metal. Don't need an x-ray to figure that out."

Waste of time, but Marie's trying to nod discreetly and get his attention at the same time. The lift of her brow says she wants him to do something for her. "You should talk to Dr. Grey. She's good at looking into stuff," she enunciates.

Not subtle, but, "All right," he agrees.

"Thank you." Jean opens the circle to the kid leaning against the doorjamb, knee cocked like James Dean. "Rogue, I don't know if you've been introduced, this is John Allerdyce."

"It's Pyro."

Jean hides a smile, continuing, "He's volunteered to show you around the school."

"If I get my lighter back," Pyro says, just as Marie replies, "I've already had the tour."

"John, you know the rules," Jean tells him mildly. "Why don't you introduce Rogue to Bobby and your other friends?"

He's all artifice and impatience when he pushes himself away from the wall. "Come on, new girl."

Marie's lip takes on an unimpressed curl. She rolls her eyes up and over. "You'll find me later, Logan?"

"Yeah, kid."

Brushing by Jean to get out the door, Marie strides right past Pyro. Her saunter's back, and Logan's not the only one to notice.

"Nice jeans," Pyro comments, following her to the stairs at a convenient distance.

"It's not the jeans you're complimenting, Sparky," Marie retorts, sliding her gloved hand up the banister. "It's the ass holding them up."

Pyro takes the stairs two at a time, snickering. "Yep. That's what I said."

Marie's already turned the corner at the top of the staircase, but Logan can still hear the acid in her drawl, "A gentleman would advert his eyes. If I have to avert them for you, I'll make it permanent."

Seventeen. Hell of an age.

"John isn't the likeliest choice for the welcoming committee," Jean admits, starting down the hallway. "But he really did want to meet her. He must have known Rogue would give him a run for his money."

Yeah, Marie tends to do that. Logan falls into step, hands behind his back again. "She acts a lot older than she should."

"Not uncommon in people forced to grow up too fast. This hasn't been an easy year for her." Jean's sideways glance is gracious. "You really helped her by taking her in."

"She's a good kid," he replies.

"I'm sure she is." Jean hesitates. "But her particular mutation doesn't make it easy for her."

"Won't be a problem. She doesn't like to be touched," he says briskly. "That clinic did a number on her."

The elevator opens for them, and Jean steps in. She fusses over the panel instead of answering.

"You know Southaven," he guesses, watching the doors close.

"I certainly don't agree with it. It's a 'treatment' facility, which is political doublespeak for finding a cure at any cost. It's a terrible fact of our government. They refuse to pay adequate reparations to the Vietnamese people for generations of genetic defects due to the use of Agent Orange in combat. But present them with a boy whose gift let him survive the house fire that killed his foster parents, and they'll pay any price to make sure he gets all the finest medical care."

The elevator opens to the lower levels, and she's shaking her head as they walk out.

Turning to face him, she continues, "The Senate Select Committee on Mutants has been pouring money into Southaven since it opened two years ago."

"Governments are always corrupt. You got 'gifts,' fancy uniforms. Do somethin' about it."

Jean's smile is wane. "I'm afraid it's not that simple, Logan."

"Place does experiments on mutant kids. Seems simple to me."

"Genetic testing. Probably skin samples, in Rogue's case. I don't agree with Southaven philosophically; however, the evidence does not justify using force against a clinic full of innocent people doing the job that eighty-five percent of the mutants there pay a lot of money for them to do."

He steps in her space. "What the other fifteen percent want don't count?"

"Legally? They're either low-risk convicted criminals or they're minors with signed consent forms. Rogue made it clear she did not want to be there, and that, I'm sure, influences the way she views her time at Southaven."

"You're sayin' she's wrong?"

Voice low, eyes meeting his, Jean repeats, "I'm saying it's not that simple. We wouldn't have been able to do anything for her while she was there, but I am glad she's here now." Another gracious smile. "She needs more friends like you."

With that weightless elegance, she turns and leads him down the corridor. All the talking like she's got the world on her shoulders doesn't show. She's telling the truth, though, about everything. He doesn't like questioning Marie on this one. Only, he can't deny her ability to lie so convincingly to herself that she smells honest.

Jean's silent until they're passing the alcove. "You know, the leather's actually very tasteful. In comparison." She presses her palm against the wall by one of the circular doors. "You should've seen the spandex options."

Logan eyes her up and down as he follows her into the med lab and decides the good doctor in spandex is definitely is something he should've seen.

She slips into a white lab coat and slides on a pair of glasses, her warm demeanor changing into cool professionalism. He stands off to the side, while she fiddles with computers and equipment and generally forgets that he's there.

He clears his throat.

Jumping slightly, Jean lifts her eyes from the consol to meet his. "If you'll remove the sweatshirt and lie down on the examining table, I'll be ready in a moment."

Yes ma'am, Logan thinks, unzipping the hoody and leaving it on the rack she had her lab coat on.

She doesn't speak as she attaches the circular patches to his skin again. There's nothing to do but watch her. He's glad he doesn't see any bruises on her neck.

Moral high ground and better chance of forgiveness, Marie said.

"I'm sorry."

Jean stills, square frames almost sliding down her nose. "About what?"

"If I hurt you." He points at her neck.

Her smile is forgiveness enough, and he nods.

Jean moves to the machine beside the table. Craning his neck, Logan lets out the breath he's been holding. He looks down at his chest. Smirks. "So. Couldn't wait to get my shirt off again, huh?" Gages her reaction.

Seemingly not amused, she presses a button that sends him into a hole in the wall.

Logan settles back, still smirking. If he has to be here, he might as well enjoy himself. He narrows his eyes against the bright lights that'll let the good doctor have a look under his skin.

At the very least, he's for damn sure she's old enough to be qualified to do it.


	13. Breathe, chapter 4

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**ALL YOU TOUCH AND ALL YOU SEE / IS ALL YOUR LIFE WILL EVER BE**

"_You know, if it kept you from horning in on his fiancée,_

_I bet Cyclops wouldn't care if you were screwing me six ways from Sunday."_

– _Rogue –_

Bouncing the back of her head noiselessly against the metal headboard, she pulls her crossed legs in tighter. Space is rapidly diminishing as her new roommates fling borrowable jeans, tops, socks, shoes, pajamas, and even stuffed animals on what's been designated Rogue's bed. Community possessions. A necessary way of life in a place with wide open doors, where an introduction constitutes a friendship and it's learn to coexist on top of each other or tough shit.

"Jubee, move your booty," the Brazilian girl, Amara, demands, bumping Jubilee away from the closet with her hip.

Exaggerating a stumble, Jubilee catches her balance on Ric's slender shoulders and plops herself into his lap. "Lo siento, papi," she coos as she trails a blue spark down the front of his sweater.

Under normal circumstances, Rogue thinks she'd find Jubilee and her firecracking ways a riot. Right now, the ringing in her ears is making her nauseous.

"How about a little rumble?" Jubilee asks, presumably referencing Ric's mutation. She wiggles in his lap cleverly. Rogue cringes. Is her own Lolita routine as absurdly transparent?

"Skank-slut," John coughs into his hand loudly. He spins around in the computer chair closest to Rogue, dodging a slipper thrown by Kitty and a death look from Jubilee.

Ric murmurs something like, "Bless her heart," making Jubilee focus her glare on him. "What? I said, 'You're pretty.'"

Beaming, she snuggles back up. Looking at Rogue, Jubilee explains, "Ric's a big ol' queen, if you couldn't tell."

"So's Bobby," John adds. He's got his hands on a book of matches and a scented candle now.

Bobby glances up from his textbook, snorting out a frosty breath. "Keep dreaming."

While the two argue over relative queerness, Kitty gets Ric's opinion as to whether the boys are bordering on homophobic or protesting too much. Jubilee argues vehemently for the latter, allying John and Bobby against her. For his part, Ric throws up his hands, announcing, "Queen, king – all the same to me, so long as I'm the one handling the pieces."

Over the fray, Amara emerges from the closet. "Success!" she cries, a pair of long, black gloves draped over her wrists. She presents them to Rogue with a joking curtsey. "For you. If never again I'm forced to sit through another opera, it'll be too soon."

"Thanks," Rogue replies, not knowing what else to say. She lays the lacy gloves out on her knee.

"Fashionable and functional," Kitty pronounces.

Rogue hopes her answering smile isn't too bland. The throbbing against her skull hasn't ebbed nearly as quickly as the Professor hoped it would. He prescribed the company of others to keep her out of her head. Flippantly, she thinks, in or out, her sanity's in peril either way.

Suddenly trilling what can only be a string of Portuguese profanities, Amara steps right on Logan's jacket in her hurry to swipe the massively lit candle and matchbook away from John. With her bare hand, she snuffs out the six-inch flame. "Look at the ceiling, otário! Still scorched from last time!"

"All right, all right. But give me the matches, okay? Grey has my lighter."

Rogue smirks weakly. That's what he thinks.

Amara raps him on the nose with her fingertips. "No!"

"Woman!" John throws his elbows over his head. "I am not a puppy!"

"You certainly sniff around people like one," Rogue tosses out, eliciting appreciative noises from the room.

Golf claps hoity, Jubilee says in an affected British accent, "Marvelous bitchery."

"A stunning display," Ric mimics.

"Like I should even bother with you." John's gaze is on her gloves, and Rogue feels herself flushing with surprise and anger. His mouth twists into a leer. "Good thing I enjoy a challenge." The last ember on the candlewick flares.

Asshole. Gloves off, she could show him a thing or twenty –

Bobby cuts through the antagonism before it gets ugly: "John, you need to stop talking. Rogue doesn't want to hear it and neither do the rest of us." Bright blue eyes find hers, eliciting a grateful smile.

"Seriously," Kitty puts in. "I mean, can we, you know, actually study for this final, please and thank you?"

"I'd like to graduate," Ric agrees, shooing Jubilee off his lap so he can read his notes.

Spinning again, John says, "Roman Empire, blah, blah, religious strife, Jesus Freak martyrs, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 after he contracted Christianity. Essay one, bam. Done. A-plus."

"First of all, you've never seen an A-plus in your life and you will never, because, let's be honest among friends, I break the curve every time." Kitty has Bobby jokingly breathe on her fingernails. "Second, 'contracted Christianity,' what the heck?" she questions.

"Yeah, contracted. Christianity's just like AIDS – it's resistive to science, targets homosexuals, and completely raped Africa."

_Blasphemers burn_, Rogue thinks, shocking herself with someone else's ferocity. There are other opinions, no stronger than a conflicted drone, but the revival voice cuts through them. Should-have-been-voiceless Lora, who knows three ways to perform an exorcism, all of which failed against her _Godforsaken_ _deformity. Sinner, I'm a sinner _–

Ugh. Rogue follows Ric's hand as he makes the sign of the cross. Back, demon. Into the dark.

"You are one messed up mutant," Ric says. No kidding, she thinks, except he's not talking about her.

Jubilee and Amara trade low whistles and hen clucks, while Kitty's jaw is practically touching her collarbone. "I'm not even Christian, and I still find that offensive!"

"It's also a completely invalid comparison, because you can't just stop believing in AIDS and be cured," Bobby asserts.

John's shit-eating grin remains intact. It was the rise he wanted, and he already got it.

What would it be like, Rogue has to wonder, to have someone so completely uncensored flying around her head? Crowded, of course. She's crowded already, the Professor just stirred her up. Would the devil-may-care be worth it?

Stop it. She massages the base of her skull roughly. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

"You okay, chica?"

A hand on her shoulder makes Rogue jerk back, startling Jubilee. "Yeah, fine. Sorry. Headache."

"We're loud, aren't we? We'll go to the lounge," Bobby offers, closing his textbook.

"That's sweet, but, really, I like the company," she says, meaning it in spite of her complaining. He smiles, and her head aches anew because suddenly she's reminded of David.

_Your fault. You did this. _David's there but, more than anyone, he doesn't want to be.

John snorts. "I believe it. Big Bad Claws doesn't strike me as much of a conversationalist."

Laughing, Jubilee sits carelessly on the pile next to Rogue. "He has other qualities, I'm sure."

"Jubilation," Amara admonishes.

Not getting the hint, John throws up a colorful rubber band ball and catches it. "Makes you wonder how they passed the time."

Rogue snaps, "You should just change your name to Asshole, save people the trouble."

"Believe me, it's starting to stick," Bobby replies, an apology in his voice.

A knock on the door catches the attention of seven pairs of eyes. Looking every bit the proud teacher, Storm says, "A study party, I'm so happy to see you taking my advice. You'll all do wonderfully tomorrow, I'm sure."

Everyone does their best to look responsible. Except John, who slouches further in his chair.

"Could I borrow you for a moment, Kitty? The bathroom in Dr. McCoy's old room isn't stocked, and there's something of a crisis on the third floor." On cue, the light fixture shakes. Storm looks worried.

Kitty grins and hops up. "Sure thing, Ms. Monroe."

"I knew I could count on you," she says, eyes still locked on the ceiling as she hurries away.

John tosses the rubber ball to Bobby, who catches it one-handed. "Bet you wish she polished your apple that hard."

"If you're going to be lewd, at least try to make sense." Kitty points at the hiking pack and jacket next to Rogue's bed. "I'll take that, too, if you want."

"Actually, I'll come with you," she replies, gathering Logan's things.

She can feel John staring at her ass. "Switching rooms – Damn it!" The rubber ball, which must've nailed him pretty soundly, rolls toward Ric.

"Shut your mouth," Bobby orders, very slowly.

Another grateful look thrown his way, Rogue joins Kitty in the hall.

"We're all really sorry about John," she says as soon as they've started walking. "Basically, he's like the handsy uncle with Tourette's no one has the heart to disinvite to the family reunion. But he's not always this bad – he's really bring the rude today, clearly trying to get your attention. You know boys. Always kicking sand in your face if they like you."

"I'm so flattered."

"Right?" Kitty giggles. "And here we have the supply closet." White walls and lots of towels. As she collects different items, she explains, "The staff goes home at six-thirty, so we're on our own after that. They're really nice, but – I mean, take Carl for instance, the maintenance guy. He should've graduated from MIT or something. Only he's a super obvious mutant, so he's a janitor instead of an engineer. Makes me so mad. Jubes and I want to become lawyers so we can fight injustices like that, you know?"

Kitty heads out the door. If Rogue's not mistaken, her shoulder brushed right through the frame.

"Dr. McCoy's old room is that way, south wing. Now he's a super, super genius. He looks like a total science nerd – you've probably seen him on TV – but rumor has it his mutation makes him a serious beast. He was one of the X-Men, before he became, like, the mutant spokesguy. Bobby's thinking about politics, too. Very _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_, minus the 'aw shucks.'"

On information overload, Rogue just responds, "He seems nice."

"Bobby is nice," Kitty agrees with too much emphasis. Like she's trying to convince herself of something.

That gets her curious. "Have you been dating long?"

"A couple weeks. Jubes played matchmaker, like she always does. She kept saying I had to seal the deal now, or some new girl was going to swoop in and grab him. It was a little fast for my taste. Not that I'm complaining. Bobby's wonderful. But I'm kind of on the rebound, because I just got out of a two-year relationship with my boyfriend, Josh. The long distance thing was making me ridiculously homesick, I was always in a bad mood. So we fought all the time and then we broke up –" Kitty takes a big breath and grins. "Drama, drama, drama."

It's enough to make Rogue prefer the road.

"This one right here," Kitty says, tilting her armload toward the corner room ahead. "No need to get the door, just put your hand on me. Step lively."

With widening eyes, Rogue grips the shorter girl's shoulder as, together, they shuffle straight through the wall and into the bathroom. While Kitty's setting down her pile in the sink, Rogue tests the wall's solidity. Amazing. A touch dizzy, she drops Logan's stuff next to the toilet and perches on the seat.

"I'm kind of a showoff," Kitty confesses, filling up the medicine cabinet. "I got my first taste of the limelight in jr. high, when I dominated the all-school talent show. I made _The Trib_ and everything. That's how Professor Xavier found me. I literally begged my parents to let me come here. I had to promise them I'd go to college back home, like Northwestern or DePaul. Oh, I'm from Chicago, by the way. The suburbs, not the actual city. Although, how cool would that be? How about you?"

_Montgomery_ to _Calgary_, twelve different answers from the dirty dozen echo in her head. She'd forgotten there are so many. Some are a whisper, some a shout.

"Meridian, Mississippi."

"Awesome. Finally, something about you that's not hearsay." Kitty's reflection rolls its eyes grandly. "We at Xavier's Institute are fed by the rumor mill. To be perfectly honest, I'm no less gluttonous than the rest, as you might have noticed. However, I assure you, we are not all as apt as some people to jump to inappropriate assumptions."

Oh, whatever. Rogue shrugs. "Gotta pay the rent somehow."

Kitty freezes, her expression caught somewhere between scandal and revulsion.

"That was a joke. I was joking."

Now Kitty looks embarrassed. "Yeah, totally. I getcha. It takes me a second, sometimes. Jubilee always makes fun of me for it." Her laugh is awkward.

Saved by an opening door, Kitty motions to the wall. Rogue waves her on, keeping her seat. An exaggerated thumbs up, and she disappears.

So not that big of a deal, God. Her momma begs to differ, but Rogue refuses to listen.

Instead, she trains her ears on the sound of Logan's voice.

"Where's your room?" he's asking, seemingly unaware of her presence in the dimly lit bathroom.

"With Scott, down the hall," Dr. Grey answers.

Logan's had plenty of time to ask her about Southaven already, but Rogue hopes that he finds a way to steer the conversation in that direction. It's important what Dr. Grey thinks of her because she's in a position to do something. The Professor more or less said so himself.

"Is that your gift? Putting up with that guy."

Rogue has to smile, even though she doesn't think Cyclops's all that bad. He wouldn't let her play with the controls on the ride to New York, but even his condescension was kind of cute.

"Actually, I'm telekinetic," Dr. Grey replies. "I can move things with my mind."

"Really? What kinds of things?"

Doors shut decisively. "All kinds of things." More softly, Dr. Grey adds, "I also have some telepathic ability."

Maybe that's why, maybe Dr. Grey knows. It must've looked bad, whatever she saw. If only it was possible to explain.

Logan asks, "What, like your professor?"

"Nowhere near that powerful."

Rogue's shoulders relax. No, Dr. Grey couldn't have seen anything, then. Even invited, the Professor wasn't able to sort through the chaos in her head. A very fragile equilibrium, he called it, and told her evolution had equipped her with remarkable coping skills.

_The devil's work_ – Shut the hell up, you goddamn lunatic.

Yeah. Darwin could kiss her ass.

Logan and Dr. Grey are speaking in lowered voices now. Rogue moves to kneel by the open doorway, the better to hear if they get around to talking about something worthwhile.

"So read my mind."

Rogue's eyebrows shoot up. Getting information out of Logan was like pouring scalding water into a teacup balanced on the back of her hand. But Dr. Grey gets easy access?

He even goads her. "Come on. You afraid you might like it?"

"I doubt it."

Ho-oh, not even. Rogue peeks around the corner. She knows Logan's body language, they're fucking flirting. Unacceptable.

_What did I say about Trouble? What did I say? _Her momma crows, triumph making Rogue nauseous again._ He didn't get what he wanted out of you, now he's moved on to the very next thing in a skirt._

I listened, Rogue thinks fiercely. I didn't let him make me any promises.

* * *

"Maybe your professor's holding you back," Logan observes. "Maybe he's not alone."

"I hope you're not suggesting that Scott's holding me back."

"I don't know, he seems a little restrained for a woman like you."

Rogue could throw up right here. Or all over Dr. Grey's pointy red tranny heels. What does enormous feet correspond to on a chick? Logan would be the one to ask.

Okay, immature. Dr. Grey's tone, to her credit, is no-nonsense. "If Scott opened his eyes without that visor, he could punch a hole through a mountain. I think it's good for all of us if he has a sense of control. Don't you?"

The floorboards creak under Logan's weight as he waves the white flag.

"Wait. Come here."

_Dangle a pair of tits in his face, and he'll come like a donkey follows a carrot on a stick. _Spot-on critique, Guff. Also, be quiet.

"All right. I need you to try and relax." Dr. Grey lifts her hands to either side of Logan's face.

Both are so absorbed in the silence, they don't notice Cyclops stop in the room's second doorway.

Abruptly, Dr. Grey's head snaps back. Logan grips her bare hands. "What do you see?"

After a moment, she answers, "Scott."

Rogue can't read his angle, so she leans her head against the bathroom wall.

"Goodnight, Logan," she hears Dr. Grey say. To Cyclops she asks, "Are you coming?"

"I'll be right there."

Amusement drips from Logan's voice. "You gonna tell me to stay away from your girl?"

"If I had to do that, she wouldn't be my girl. And Jean doesn't strike me as your type."

Ooh, Cyclops just called Logan white trash. This deserves popcorn and bag of Twizzlers.

"Mm. Well, I guess you've got nothin' to worry about. Do ya, 'Cyclops.'"

"You know, I'd feel a lot better if you were taking this more seriously. Some mutants take pride in their gifts. Especially those of us who are willing to fight for what we believe in."

_Aw, heck, I knew it! Lock 'em all up. Put 'em in cages 'fore they take over_ – Eugene the Redneck, ladies and gentlemen. Worst security guard ever.

"Have you ever seen real combat, boy?"

"Have you?" Cyclops shoots back.

The silence takes a turn toward tense. Rogue risks a look.

"Don't like to talk about your past?"

"Not to you."

"It must just burn you up that a 'boy' like me saved your life. You gotta be careful. I might not be there next time." Cyclops's almost got the door shut when he adds, "Oh, and Logan? Stay away from my girl. And the students."

Whoa now. Rogue stands up swiftly, hands on her hips.

"What're you doin' in there?"

Cyclops's gone, leaving Logan one hundred percent pissed off.

Picking up his jacket, she digs around in his hiking pack as she emerges from the bathroom. "I brought you your stuff. Here." She tosses John's lighter and a cigar on the bed. "I thought you could use one of those. Everybody here is so uptight."

Grunting, he picks up her peace offering.

"I'll hang your jacket in the closet. I managed to fit a couple shirts and some socks and stuff. All your cigars, too, so you're set. Oh, and your keys. I couldn't do much about the window except put some plastic over it, but I did lock up."

"Thanks, Marie," he replies absently.

She folds her arms over her chest. "Call me Rogue here, okay?" No discernible response. He's sitting on the edge of the mattress, puffing at his cigar. "Lighter, please."

He tosses it underhand, still looking through her. It's insulting. Less than twelve hours ago, she'd been the only woman in his life. The only person, come to that.

Instead of a left hook, she goes for a verbal slap: "You know, if it kept you from horning in on his fiancée, I bet Cyclops wouldn't care if you were screwing me six ways from Sunday."

"Watch your mouth."

"Yes, daddy."

Too far. Way too far. He's gone completely still, but his eyes burn sharp.

"Logan." It's almost a whine. "Don't you think I've been called a 'piece' enough times to know the difference between a pervert and a decent guy? I'm not thirteen. I'm legal, and I talk a lot of shit. How were you supposed to know?" She kneads her damp forehead with her palms, eyes scrunched shut. "And it's not like I didn't ruin everything anyway."

"Kid, you're sweatin' bullets." He stands, reaching out.

"It's my mutation and it sucks," she snaps, backpedaling away from him.

Something is welling up inside of her, a mixture of half-crazed shame and excitement named

Gordon Neville. Thinning hair, doughy, with a new car and a room at the Holiday Inn Express. Harmless in action, not thought. He wanted her to be young, he wanted her to be damaged.

"I'm such an idiot," she says, hardly realizing she's speaking out loud. "I should've knocked him out with the telephone or something, not my skin. Now he's – Same for Carol, I didn't have to. I could've just…"

Me. Awake. Aware. Me.

Rogue's sputtering water, next thing she knows. A gentle tug on her hair lifts her head, and a towel catches the water dripping down her chin. She opens her eyes, watching green fade to brown.

Logan's face is next to hers in the mirror. "You with me?"

Smiling slightly, she nods. Better. She feels better now. Neatly arranged.

"You were just starin' at nothin', about ready to fall over."

Her coma-narcolepsy. It's been a while. Not really needing his help, she leans on Logan as he sits her on the toilet seat. He crouches in front of her, hands still on her hips.

She's ashamed of herself for treating him so awful and then making him worry. "The Professor tried to read my mind earlier, and it scrambled things up a bit. I'm really okay. I just needed to hit the edge before I could bounce back."

"The edge of what?"

Her one-shouldered shrug is a reflex. Why doesn't she just tell him?

Standing, Logan hands her the towel so she can dry her face. "You need some sleep."

Rogue follows him into the bedroom. "Did you find anything out for me from Dr. Grey?"

"Not much. I mean it, get some sleep. We'll talk in morning."

"The Professor didn't have much to say, either." Rogue frowns. "I figured they'd talk to you, at least. Since you're…"

Logan holds the door open for her. "An adult?"

She walked right into that one. "I guess I don't get to be one here. House rules."

His mouth compresses at her bitterness. "You ain't an adult, kid. That's how it is."

"That's not how it is, that's just how it looks to them. You know me. You know I'm just like you."

He starts to shake his head, so she gives up with an audible sigh. Pivoting on her heel, she chooses the second way out. The door shuts hard, of it's own volition. He probably thinks she slammed it, like petulant little girl. Kitty said it best – drama, drama, drama.

She should apologize, explain everything to him. He won't be her ally if she's not honest.

Before she can bring herself go back, Bobby comes around the corner. "Hey, there you are." His eyes light up when he grins.

"Hi."

"So, what're you up to tomorrow?"

Continuing her endless cycle of trading wrong-doings and apologies with Logan, no doubt. That, or laying bare all her crimes and psychoses. Looking forward to it. "I don't know yet."

"Well, I've got finals pretty much all day, but do you wanna meet me for dinner? We can to get know each other. All of us, I mean. The whole gang." He winces slightly, laughing at himself. "I promise I'm not as dorky as I sound."

Rogue has to chuckle. "Sure."

"'Sure' I'm not dorky, or 'sure' you'll meet me for dinner?"

"Both."

"Cool." He starts walking backward. "I'll see you tomorrow, Rogue. Welcome to Mutant High."

So much like David. It's kind of painful.

She definitely needs to wipe the wistful look over someone else's boyfriend off her face before she gets to her room.

Movement at the end of the hallway catches her attention. A tall, impossibly slender man in a navy uniform whose face and hands seemed to glow milk-marble white pushes a yellow cart. Carl, Rogue remembers, briefly wondering how bad the third floor crisis was that he had to come back and work overtime.

Luckily, the door to her room is open, otherwise she might not have recognized it. Kitty, Jubilee, and Amara aren't inside. It's just their other roommate, a younger girl with curly blonde hair named Tawny and a few of her friends. They trade hellos. The girls are studying for world history, too, only their final is multiple choice since they're a couple grades younger. Rogue listens to them work out the Constantine issue as she tries to figure out what she should do with the pile of laundry on her bed.

"Need some help?" one of the friends asks, smiling just a little too sweetly.

Before she can get out more than a hesitant, "Uh," the girl purses her lips together and blows. Arms windmilling against a tornado of fabric, Rogue's compelled backward onto Jubilee's bed.

The girls collapse into giggles. "Oops! Sorry," Hot Air manages.

Hysterical. If she weren't so tired, she'd casually lift the bed off the floor to pick up a shoe or something. That'd put a stop to the new-girl hazing right quick.

Be an adult, she tells herself. With great composure, she walks over to her bed and grabs the last remaining piece of clothing, a long-sleeved pink nightgown. "Exactly what I was looking for," she says evenly.

Rogue takes her time in the shared bathroom, giving up more and more of the sink as girls of various ages vie for space. A few are obvious mutants, some are just obvious about their powers. Absolutely disconcerting. Mutations are something to be endured or employed, they aren't, like Cyclops said, something to be proud of.

Shutting a stall door, Rogue changes in the cramped space. The nightgown fits, only she didn't realize that it's backless and the sleeves make putting her gloves on too awkward. She's extra careful on the walk between the bathroom and her bed, hands tucked firmly under her armpits and eyes on the carpet.

If she's proud of anything, it's that she never used her mutation on Logan. Clearly, she has enough control to resist him, so all the little temptations around her should be nothing.

She climbs under the covers and curls up, even though the light's on. Better safe than sorry.

One by one, the other girls drift into their beds and off to sleep. At least an hour passes, but Rogue's eyes stay open.

So many ways today could've gone. Logan could be a prisoner, or Rogue could be on the road. Or they could be together back at the cabin. She'd be sleeping easy, or maybe she'd be awake and not sabotaging herself by over-thinking the one experience every single person inside her head has in common.

What she wouldn't be doing is lying in the dark compiling a mental list of mutations, evaluating their level of desirability, and hating herself for it.

I wasn't a monster until they made me one, she told Logan. She wants to believe it's true. He doesn't think so, at least. "You ain't a monster," he said. "You're just" – Just what? Confused? Weak?

She needs to know. Right now. She needs to tell him everything and then, all evidence before the judge, make him finish that sentence.

As soundlessly as she can, Rogue slips out of bed and feels her way through the dark. The carpet is littered with shadowy objects, mostly clothes, but she stubs her toe on a textbook and has to bite her lip. Now would be a great time to have Kitty's mutation.

The lock clicks when she turns the doorknob gingerly. Someone behind her rolls over, likely still asleep. If not, oh well. She could just be going to the bathroom.

She's not a prisoner. This isn't Southaven.

Rogue pads down the hallway with a purpose. Logan will wake up as soon as she walks in, but hopefully her lack of gloves will tell him that she's not there to get him kicked out.

She hears his snuffling moans before she crosses the threshold. He's on his back, muscles twitching in his sleep. Approaching cautiously, she tilts her head and tries to make out words in his low muttering.

Once, from the kitchen she heard him yell so loudly she shattered the mug in her hand. He told her he dreams about war. She doesn't dream Carol's dreams, but if she did they'd be about flying and camaraderie and a job well done, nothing like the violence that shackles Logan to his past.

Bare hand hovering over his shoulder, Rogue leans down to murmur his name. His body jerks, and she pulls her hand away. She tries again, louder, "Logan. Logan, wake up."

The nightmare has him completely. His breaths are guttural huffs that sound like pleas. Rogue knows what is it be so trapped.

Without warning, his head snaps forward and his eyes fly open, making her catch her breath. She lets out a shriek that's lost to a roar and a zing and a thud.

The air left in her windpipe chokes her, the sharp metal through her chest pools blood into her lungs. All she feels is the blind hatred on Logan's face turn to shock as recognition seeps in and he looks down at where his claws join their bodies.

When he retracts them she realizes she's going to die.

"Help me." Logan's wet-bright eyes dart to the open door, to her contorted face, and back again. "Somebody help!"

Rogue can help. Not him. Herself. In the end, she always helps herself.

Pain slowing down her brain, she falters forward by inches. They're breathing the same air again, only they've reversed roles. The apprehension belongs to him. Her lips rest against his. For a moment, she pretends.

It's a shaky effort to draw at his bottom lip, to press her hand to his cheek for balance and because she needs more. His mind falls open with his mouth. She stumbles back against a wave of shock and anger, grief and loathing. He was drowning in his dream, now she's suffocating before his eyes. His fault.

Her fault. Fingertips against stubble, pulling from him the strength that siphons out blood and mends her punctured lungs. Rogue breathes, Logan chokes. He's totally exposed, his expression utterly helpless. Closing her eyes does nothing to take the shame away.

Let go – Not yet, her skin is still broken. So supple, the way it comes together and makes her perfect. It's the opposite of death, but death is still there, trickling in. She should take more –

No!

Rogue drops her arm. Logan hits the floor, convulsing with seizures.

"Scott, grab a pillow!"

The light is on, and there are so many people. Backing against a dresser, she watches Jean kneel beside Logan and cradle his head. Cyclops pushes past Rogue, and she turns to face Storm.

"It was an accident," Rogue says.

Storm remains still. Gaping faces crowd the doorway. Sparing one more look at Logan – he'll survive; she's never touched anyone as long, but he can't die, he never does – she sweeps out of the room. Past Amara, past Bobby. Head ducked, she just keeps walking.

Outside is where she needs to be, where the sky won't pin her in. The lights are too bright, the place reeks, and she can hear the gossip start to buzz in time with the hum of her skin.

Windowed doors lead to a small balcony. The air is crisp in her repaired lungs. She sinks down, drawing in her knees and burying her nose in them.

Now you know everything, she thinks. What's the verdict?

Logan doesn't verbalize an answer. It's enough that he's there, ruffled and uneasy but not fighting her, not hating her. More than she could've hoped for.

He settles into her. She rocks herself, and it's as soothing as he can manage.


	14. Breathe, chapter 5

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**BALANCED ON THE BIGGEST WAVE / YOU RACE TOWARD AN EARLY GRAVE**

"_Me?" Logan huffs out a mirthless laugh. "You're the experts._

_I'm just the guy who gave her a place to lay low for a while."_

– _Logan –_

Too slow. The rhythm inside his skull, against his chest. Grasp and release, rise and fall. Consciousness has always come in jolts. From one thing to the next. This murky building of awareness…too much like incremental death. Death as he imagined it was yes or no. There or not. He isn't prepared for the reality.

Logan can feel Xavier prodding against his mind before he can smell him, well before he can force his eyes open.

He breathes roughly. "What happened? Is she all right?"

"She'll be all right," Xavier replies.

The relief hurts, almost worse than the regret. Barely able to lift his arm, he has to shut his eyes to summon the strength. "What did she do to me?"

"Whenever Rogue touches someone, she takes their energy, their life-force. In the case of mutants, she absorbs their gifts for a short while. In your case, your ability to heal."

"I feel like she almost killed me." Fair price, set against the alternative. More than fair.

"If she'd held on any longer, she could have."

Bleary-eyed, Logan studies Xavier. More unsettling than his own mortality is the implication. "What do you know?"

Xavier sits back in his chair, fingers coming together on his lap. "Only Rogue knows what happened to Captain Danvers, and even then I'd be surprised if she knows the whole story."

"Government clinic. Your fuckin' enlightened masses." There's a break in his voice. Can't shake the weakness.

"The situation is not that black and white. For the sake of us all, it mustn't be. Each case has to be judged individually. All circumstances, all sides taken into account."

"She ain't a killer." He'd be on his feet, could he manage it.

"You're misunderstanding me. The truth – the truth as she feels it – is that Captain Danvers' death was, in fact, her fault."

"Her skin – "

"I agree. However. For better or worse, Rogue is in possession of one of the most complicated mutations I have ever encountered. But what she did or does, the person she is while under the tyranny of others' influence is much less important than who she believes herself to be, who she wants to be. In time, I can help her to understand that."

The tenseness in Logan's shoulders is exhausting, forcing him to settle into the mattress. "Your word again?"

"Yes. This time for free."

Little choice in believing him. Even so, Logan can't come up with a reason not to.

Xavier, smiling thinly, pulls back from the bed. "Rogue is perfectly safe where she is. You should rest. You'll both feel better in the morning."

The room goes dark, and Logan sinks into sleep. He drowns in it, surfaces, only to be dragged down again. A laboratory is a battlefield. A rent by the hour kind of room, carpet drenched in blood. Claws won't pierce his chest plate, but his guts are in his lap. He has his fist against Marie's parted lips. Raised veins around glinting green eyes crinkle like smile lines.

Logan jerks up in bed, holding his bent hand in front of his face. Under his skin, he can see the tip of his middle claw ready to spring.

Fuck's sake.

When he gets into the shower, he makes sure the water's boiling. It pounds against his muscles, coiled tight with rushing blood. His body's overcompensating for what Marie rightfully took, preparing him for a fight that he's not about to have and wouldn't win anyway. The pansy-ass designer soap clenched in his fist suffers the brunt of his aggression.

Second morning in a row he's gotten out of bed cranky and wondering how the hell he's going to face Marie.

Kiss won't kill me, he said. What the fuck did he know?

Painfully obvious, he's in over his head. Yesterday he put food in her stomach and money in her pocket, things she needed. Today he's got nothing to offer that's worth a damn, because sometime between then and now Marie turned into a seventeen-year-old kid who wants him to call her Rogue like everybody else, who thinks she's a monster and says they're just alike. Its not something he can wash off, the feeling that Marie trusted Xavier with a hell of a lot more than she ever intended to tell him. Not all that surprising, but he reduces two bars of soap to pulp over it.

He's got no right to fault her for thinking the worst of him. She lied to protect herself. Told him she was older to give him incentive for her to stay, probably, and never let him touch her so he wouldn't have a reason to hurt her back. He tried to leave her in the bar, the woods, insulted her, doubted her, took advantage. He would've sent her off to fend for herself on bad evidence. She'd be paranoid and alone somewhere in the Yukon about now, if Magneto's lackeys hadn't made their move when they did. If Xavier's people hadn't shown up, she'd be even worse off. Because of him. And when she tried to release him from a nightmare, he skewered her with three foot-long razorblades.

With friends like him.

Dressed, Logan takes off down the hallway on a prowl. He has to make sure she's okay, only he wants to do it without her knowing. Scent says she's already checked in on him.

It leads him to the dinning hall, where he can look in from the side door. A handful of kids are scattered along wooden tables, hunkered over notebooks. Marie, wet hair hanging down, is the only one at the buffet. As she leans over to scoop food from the far side, her purple blouse rides up in the back. Denim clings to hollowed contours and unmarked skin. He doesn't understand how something so delicate could offer so much protection, but he's grateful to it.

Logan raises an eyebrow when Marie turns, revealing a tray piled high with all manner of sausages and hash browns, none of the syrup-drenched stuff she usually goes for.

She stops abruptly, and he has to stand up from his lean to see past her. A trio of wide-eyed girls, including the bushy blonde from yesterday, aren't in the doorway for long before hightailing it out of there. Logan's ready to cross the room when he catches a glimpse of the satisfied smirk playing across her face.

That delicate skin of hers is thicker than he thought.

Marie's got her back to the door, so she doesn't see James Dean chuckle his way behind her as she sits down. He makes himself at home, straddling the bench. "Come now, Roguey. That's no way to make friends."

She arches an eyebrow, biting into a sausage link. "Sparky, did I say you could sit next me?"

Pyro scoots closer. "Did I ask?"

"Aren't you brave." Sarcasm goes wistful at the end, just barely, but Logan hears it.

"You're not all sunshine and lollipops," Pyro shrugs. "I can dig it."

"Such a rebel." She tears a off a large chunk of biscuit, swallowing almost without chewing.

Pyro tries to snatch a piece of bacon, but she fends him off with her fork. "Down girl," he yelps. "There's plenty for two."

"Listen, I have never been this hungry in my life and that's sayin' something. So try that again, and I start callin' you Stumpy. Get your own."

He laughs at the three-pronged fork she's still pointing at him. "Look at you, a regular wolverine kit."

A fucking riot, this punk.

Snorting, Marie digs up a heap of potatoes. "'Kit'? You pulled that out of your ass."

"That's what they're called," he replies, defensive. He drops his elbow on the table, leaning in. "What's your story?"

"You're too young to hear it."

"The rumors are pretty vicious. If I had to sum up a best of, you'd be a kiddie prostitute serial killer who makes trophies out of mutations, and you were in Claws's room last night shaking him down – He's either your last john or your pimp, there's controversy."

Logan grits his teeth, but it's Marie who growls low in the back of her throat. An authentic growl, no giggles. He's starting to wonder what Xavier meant when he said she took his life force.

"You're full of shit."

"Don't hate on the messenger. I actually forgot to mention the part about you being inbred. I'd chalk that up to the twang. I had an Australian accent when I was little. Kindergarteners are mean."

Her lip quirks slightly. "It's been a long, tough life for you, I can tell."

"I've been here two years and some people still think I burned my foster parents alive, if that makes you feel any better."

"How's that supposed to make me feel better?" Marie lets her fork fall into her food. "Of all places, you'd think people here – "

"Even freaks need their own pariahs. Ignore it. It's smoke."

Logan frowns. He should be the one taking the edge off for her, instead of playing peeping tom spectator like an ass.

Marie mirrors Pyro's posturing, her expression a smile waiting to happen. "You put a lot of effort into making yourself repulsive."

"Or am I now putting a lot of effort into getting into your pants? It's a mystery."

"Fair enough. But you have to admit it – you Googled the kit thing just so you could make that joke."

"Slander. I would never go to all that trouble for just one joke. I got about fifty."

Her smile breaks. "For instance?"

"For instance, did you know that wolverines are also called skunk-bears? I was hoping to mention that to Claws at some strategic point."

Marie picks up her fork, all traces of amusement gone. "His name is Logan."

"That's the rumor. He's supposed to be indestructible."

"Yeah, he's pretty resilient. And it's a good thing, too." She half-turns and lifts her eyes to meet Logan's.

His folded arms drop to his sides. No way she'd seen him without his knowing.

Marie releases her stare, gloved hand going to rub the back of her neck, and he takes the moment to walk away. If she were anxious to talk to him, she'd have said something earlier. She deserves her space, he tells himself, though his gait is a little quick for courtesy.

He heads to the other side of the mansion, to the kitchen where a woman who blinked vertically made him dinner yesterday before the question and answer session with Xavier. What's the use of a telepath who won't read his mind? He read Marie's, mixed her up good while he was at it. Jean at least made the attempt, though she didn't tell him what she saw. Never told him what the tests were all about, come to that, just took a lot of notes.

Logan slows down. He's getting jerked around and the front door's open.

But he made a deal.

Jaw tight, he walks into the empty kitchen and pulls open the refrigerator. All he finds that he can easily fix for himself is ham and cheese. Nothing wrong with a hunk of meat between two slices of bread, but as he chews he recalls Marie leaning over to set down a piping hot steak in front of him, telling him she's spoiling him rotten with her family's best recipes and giving him an eye full of cleavage in the process. He had the luxury of being smug then, because all he had to do was sit back and enjoy the show while Marie maneuvered herself into his bed.

Like the thought police, the smell of synthetic amber and sandalwood – bottled urine would be more worth the fifty bucks – hits Logan's nostrils, making him huff out a growl. He stands up straight, his back to the door on the pretext of slapping together another sandwich.

Pretty boy waits pointlessly for Logan to acknowledge him first. He has most of his second sandwich eaten before Cyclops finally relents. "You're wanted in the – "

"Toddle back to daddy, Scooter, and tell him I'm not in the mood."

Making a noise like he's shoving that stick further up his ass to suppress whatever it is he actually wants to say, Cyclops replies, "No. It's Jean who wants you – "

"No surprises there. But in that case." Sandwich in hand, Logan shoulders past him.

Following, Cyclops finishes testily, " – in the med lab for more tests."

"Jeanie's nothin' if not thorough. I imagine she'll be dedicating a lot of time to lookin' me over." Swallowing the last of his sandwich, he steps into the elevator and presses the button before Cyclops can get in. "Sorry, doctor-patient confidentiality."

"That's fine. I have an appointment with Rogue to go over makeup classes with her. She missed her junior year of high school." Second time he's gotten the last word in because of a closed door, and the sanctimony just rolls off him.

* * *

Striding to the med lab, Logan's got a scowl on his face until he sees Jean massaging the dark circles under her eyes. She quickly stands, sliding on her glasses. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than you, I had to guess. You been down here all night?"

"I couldn't sleep after what happened."

Leaning against the examining table, he lifts an eyebrow. "I'm touched."

Jean shakes her head slightly, tongue resting momentarily against her teeth. "I study mutations. It started out as a hobby but it's become a bit more than that. I was discussing your case and Rogue's case with a colleague, Dr. Hank McCoy."

Logan folds his arms across his chest. "And?"

"And Hank contacted Dr. Moira MacTaggart, who's doing genetic research at St. Andrew's University in Scotland. She's not a mutant, but she's a very good friend of Charles'." Jean takes a moment to move over to the computers and start pressing buttons. "She has people on her team who were formerly employed by Southaven."

"She's a great friend of mutants. Right."

"Moira's won a lot of influential medical professionals to our cause just by being willing to work with them. It's a strategy and it gets results."

"Yeah? So what'd she say?"

Jean inhales slowly, lips thin and posture stiff as she sits back down in the desk chair. She's revving up for a long one, and he can already tell he's not going like it anymore than she's enjoying the prospect of telling him.

"I ain't gonna bite," he says, relaxing his stance for her benefit.

A flicker of appreciation, then her features settle back into serious. "In Congress there's something called the Usual Suspects, a group of mutants that the Senate Select Committee uses as reference points. One of our students, Kitty Pryde, is a Usual Suspect. Sometimes she's invoked as sort of the harmless face of mutants, most recently Senator Robert Kelly decided to use her ability to walk through walls to prove that all mutants are potential criminals."

"You mean the sonuvabitch who talked himself right into gettin' kidnapped."

"Senator Kelly and his aide have been missing nearly three days now. We believe Magneto is involved. Vanisher – Telford Porter, the mutant they arrested at the scene – is almost certainly a scapegoat, only the FBI isn't letting anyone talk to him but their lawyers. So we can't be sure what Magneto's eventual aim is. The chances of the Ellis Island plot succeeding were slim to none, but it's a distraction that's working for people like Senator Kelly. Delaying the UN Summit has brought more attention to the Registration Act, something no mutant wants."

"The MRA passes, mutants aren't happy. Magneto gets his army."

"Certainly a possibility, but Charles doesn't think so. Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, so the Professor doesn't believe he'd risk it."

"I were him, I'd risk a hell of a lot to make sure nothin' like that happens again," he says darkly.

"If mutants make a preemptive strike, it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. People right now are scared and some of them are hateful, but that's a far cry from genocide."

"Exactly how far away is 'cure at any cost'?"

Jean seems to deflate. "I wish I had a better response for you than 'it's complicated,' but, honestly, Logan, we're doing the best that we can."

"I believe you are."

To his surprise, her body language tells him she takes his words to heart, they mean something.

"Unfortunately, right now all I can offer is speculation. Hank has a theory about what Magneto wants with you. The adamantium framing your skeleton is an extremely rare alloy with innumerable potential uses – except that no scientist we know of has been able to experiment with it successfully."

"So this Hank thinks Magneto wants to strip me down and use me for parts."

"In so many words."

And for that, he got airlifted out of Canada. Just when he was starting to have something that resembled a life, he thinks, before remembering it was a sham.

Jean sits forward in her chair, the end of her swept-back hair curling around her shoulders as she rolls her neck. "We know that Magneto has some sort of weapon in mind, Charles was able to see enough for that. The best we could do is track his known associates, which is how we found you. Obviously, whatever Magneto is planning is to be done during the UN Summit, or he wouldn't have bided his time the way he has. And with Senator Kelly kidnapped, it's turned into a matter of pride. The UN Summit is going to proceed, and it's going to be more than diplomatic posturing."

"None of this makes much sense, far as master plans go."

"Admittedly," she agrees, sitting back heavily. She smiles wryly. "Magneto is usually two steps ahead, until the last possible second."

"You had many run-ins with him?"

"A few. Mostly battling it out over spheres of influence. He resents Charles teaching what he thinks of as the revolutionary generation. Magneto organized a ring of mutant gangs in the city, LA and Chicago. We broke them up." Mouth tight, she adds, "The police came down awfully hard on the ones we couldn't bring here in time."

Goes to show these kids have good reason to hate the law. Marie was terrified when he told her the cops were on their way to the bar.

With a bemused smile, Jean studies his face.

"What?"

Coming back to herself, her smile widens. "I'm sorry. It's just that you're projecting clear enough even for me. You're very protective of her. Selflessly so, considering – "

"Hey, she did what she had to do because I forced her. You shouldn't have told her not to touch anyone here. Three weeks livin' with her, and you can be damn sure she never tried anything on me." The irony of the lecher having to defend the virgin would be laughable, if he wasn't so dead set on getting Marie's story straight. "There's nothin' wrong with her finding somebody to trust won't fix."

Jean nods slowly. "I should have considered her feelings. Alienating her wasn't my intention. I was…I was taken aback when she mentioned Carol Danvers. That's what I was getting at, about Congress and the Usual Suspects. Everyone knows Captain Danvers. The bill that forces mutants into an honorable discharge from the military is called the Danvers Act. It went into effect early last year, when her mutation surfaced. Her plane was shot down by friendly fire over a Fallujah school, and she was able to pluck it right of the air and drop it safely. The military didn't know what to do with her. On the one hand, she's a hero. On the other…it's an uncomfortable thought, the idea of mutant soldiers turning into the next arms race."

He's been told something like that before. A face flickers in the back of his mind, gone before he can see it. It's someone else, not the voice calling him an animal. Someone…He tries, but all he can come up with is the worried expression of the woman sitting in front of him. The warmth lingers, the familiar grace.

"Logan – "

"So Danvers went to Southaven for treatment. Then what?"

"There was a lot of press, at first. A lot of hype – good Midwestern family, decorated officer, very patriotic. She wanted to be the first cured mutant so she could rejoin the Air Force. Camera crews and politicians went with her to all her doctor's visits. Only Southaven couldn't offer instant results. The process got longer, she was asked to come to the clinic permanently. The media lost interest over time. Then, three or four months ago, her death hit the twenty-four-hour news cycle. There and gone, because it looked bad from all angles. Official cause of death was ruled accidental, the fault of another mutant usually kept isolated the psychiatric wing."

He wrenches himself away from the table, taking a few halting steps, rubbing his knuckles. Jean puts a hand to her head and he wonders if she can feel his insides squeezing. He tries to ease off, but stillness just boils at him. "They did it, the doctors. That's what she said. They tried her out as a cure or something, I don't know. They pushed too hard, and then they put the consequences on her. Jesus, Jean. What about all you activists? Wasn't there an investigation?"

"Like I said, both sides wanted the matter to rest. Senator Kelly and the Senate Select Committee – we have allies we trust on that Committee – went to Southaven themselves to assure the American people that the –" Jean opens one of the neatly arranged files on her desk and skims it. "That's right, the 'unfortunate security lapse will never be repeated' and that the mutant, 'a minor who remains unidentified for her own protection,' was 'under control.'"

Under control. "They hate us most of all because they can't control us," Marie told him. Sentiment seems even more familiar now.

Jean ruffles through some pages, most of them printouts with news headers. "The PR pitch was…masterful. It wasn't her fault, you see. Her mutation was a disease, and it took her over and made her dangerous through no fault of her own. 'Only a cure can save her.' Prior to that, Southaven would make sure she couldn't hurt anyone or herself again. For all we knew, it was true." She lets the file fall shut. "Until that mutant turned out to be Rogue."

"So they never even reported her missing. Doesn't that tell you Southaven is more concerned with coverin' their own asses than they are with protecting the public or whatever the hell their mission is?"

"Yes, it does. Hank thinks so, too. He's very influential. I promise you, he's gathering his own investigative team today."

"You don't promise that to me, you promise it to her." He turns sharply, still pacing. "Don't suppose she'll believe you."

Standing slowly, Jean replies, "She'll believe you."

"Me?" Logan huffs out a mirthless laugh. "You're the experts. I'm just the guy who gave her a place to lay low for a while."

"You're her friend. It's as true today as it was yesterday." Her gaze is absolutely level, full of expectation. "I can sense…complications. But everything's different now, and there's no such thing as a clean break, not when you so obviously care so much. Do the difficult thing. Be her family, Logan. See her through."

He pauses, hands on his hips, and looks down at his warped reflection the light makes against the floor. Jean's asking a lot of him, but she's offering something, too. A kind of death and resurrection. A chance to be somebody who won't disappoint. Maybe he can take it.

For now, he'll let it lie.

Rolling up his sleeves, he goes to sit on the examining table. "You wanted to see me about some tests?"


	15. Breathe, chapter 6

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**RUN, RABBIT, RUN / DIG THAT HOLE, FORGET THE SUN**

"_I killed a woman, and I use her whenever I need to. I can say I'm a victim _

_because that's true, but I'm safer locked up and that's true, too." _

– _Rogue –_

Rogue drops into a crouch, gripping the top of the wooden banister. Through the railings, she looks down on the main lounge where Cyclops nurses his third cup of Earl Grey.

What is it with these people and tea? Storm might as well have drank it straight from the pot, as hard as she hit it this morning. If Rogue had known how early Storm waters her rainforest, she would've thought twice about crashing in the greenhouse for the night. She's been drenched awake by rain before, but looking out to clear skies while the water dripped down the wrong side of the glass was surreal. When Storm finally finished her kettle, it had been one soggy, ill-tempered walk back to her room.

Cyclops folds over the newspaper he's reading to take a look at his watch. The sigh he lets out strikes Rogue first as dickish then as well-deserved. She's over two hours late for their meeting, and he still hasn't taken the hint that he's been stood up. He either really cares about her education or he really wants to guilt-trip her. Point or not, the latter's working.

All she has to do is walk down there. She's been haunting the school, keeping out of sight for the most part and talking to no one since John at brunch. She's wandered past this spot a half-dozen times, alternating between thinking Cyclops's a prize idiot and thinking he's a standup guy.

But if she goes downstairs she has to commit, and that's not something she's comfortable doing.

Frowning, Rogue hugs the railing. Making up a class schedule is not a binding contract and even if it is so the hell what? She'll leave anyway, if she feels like it, and if she wants to come back she'll do that, too. Logan's absolutes are giving her a headache. And he, like his physical counterpart, still hasn't spoken to her directly.

The top of Jean's head emerges from under the slight balcony, and Cyclops's tight expression melts away. She really does just float when she walks. Rogue's eyes are locked on the sway of her hips.

Pervert.

That fails to get a rise of out the Logan in her head. It should be worrying, feeling his presence so strongly without the interaction that keeps her separate. Instead, as if a hand were stroking her hair, the agitation fades and, with it, her headache. He even does his best to ignore Jean and Cyclops kissing. Rogue glances away as thanks.

Cyclops pulls Jean into his lap, and her laugh, like every noise today, rings way too loud in Rogue's ears. Like she's sitting on Cyclops's other knee, she can hear Jean murmur in approval, "Mm, you're wearing the Burberry I bought you."

Nuzzling along the underside of her jaw, he replies, "Chanel today. My favorite."

Rogue straightens out her arms, titling as far back as possible so she can roll her eyes to the ceiling. Trade the brands for Abercrombie and Hollister and she could be listening in on a conversation in her old high school cafeteria. Besides that, nothing beats the smell of natural exertion on a woman, her sweat mixed with his, arousal at its peak. Heat rises to Rogue's cheeks. A hint of her own scent makes her close her eyes, remembering a wrestling match from dual perspectives.

I could've won that money fair and square, she'd challenged. "No chance in hell, darlin'." Furniture pushed aside, the den rug served as the perimeter of their hypothetical cage. He standing casually, one hand on his stomach. She bouncing on her toes, fists under brown satin balled up. Her chest rose and fell dramatically, having just escaped a takedown with a knee to the gut. It was easy to surprise him with her strength, so he hit the floor, face down. She straddled his waist and kept him pinned by digging an elbow between his shoulder blades. Leaned in, lips almost to his ear, You're letting me win. Shifted her weight. Sugar, how come?

On her back before she can blink, his knees pressed against either side of her thighs. Beads of sweat pooled in her collarbone, and if she tasted as good as she smelled…Sharp whiff of fear sours it, but it's for the best in hindsight because he really was going to put his mouth to her skin, consequences be damned. She almost killed him anyway, a different sort of agony. Alone in his room while she's out for firewood, new scarf she thought she'd lost covering his fist. Her sweat was on his collar, so he almost pulled a tendon trying to taste it as he raised his ass off the bed –

Rogue's own ass lands solidly against the floorboards, making her eyes fly open. She lost her grip on the rails. Goddamn gloves.

No one's around, so she lets her head drift to rest on the floor. The back of her hand comes up to her damp forehead, then to her mouth so she can taste the fabric. For someone who's forgotten most of his life, Logan sure has some vivid memories.

She groans breathily. He'd wanted her so much, and she had just been hoping against hope. The certainty is an absolute rush. Try to beat that with your sexy librarian glasses, Red. I nearly tortured him, that's how much he wanted skinny little me.

Oh.

The sudden clench hitches her breathing. Oh, no, sugar. That's awful. How can you think…The shame recedes as quickly as it washed over her, leaving Rogue lightheaded and struggling to sit up. He's not trying to overwhelm her, and that's a comfort, but he just feels everything so damned intensely. The world from Logan's perspective is too loud, too sharp, too present for Rogue not to have to shrink away. She wants his outward stoicism as much as he wants her internally whole.

That train left the station a long time ago, she thinks, though her momma approves. _He's a bad influence, chickadee, but at least he knows it._

"You're wrong about him." Rogue is surprised into turning her attention to Jean, who's now leaning forward in the chair across from Cyclops. She has his hand in hers, stroking little circles as she continues, "You're seeing the weapon, not the man."

"The man hasn't done much to impress me."

"Scott." Jean's tone is disappointed. "He's harmless – " She has to raise his voice to be heard over his incredulous laugh. "He is. But if you keep goading him he's going to keep taking it further."

"Oh, so it's my fault there's nothing to him but testosterone."

Rogue scowls.

Jean shakes her head. "You're both acting like children. Keep it up, and you'll be splitting detention with John and Bobby."

Cyclops kisses Jean's wrist. "I relent." He picks up his tea cup and finishes the dregs. Making a face, he asks, "Do you think he cares about Rogue's well-being enough to convince her to stay?"

"That's not relenting." Folding her arms in front of her on the table, Jean looks off to the side. "I think he's the only person who's cared for Rogue in a long time."

_Anna Marie, she's wrong. Your daddy and I love you. _

Cringing, she bows her head. Her momma still might, sometimes, in her own way, but even she has doubts about Rogue's father she can't hide.

"I care," Cyclops says, making Rogue sit up straighter. "We care. She's one of our students now. I'll get through to her."

"Logan says she's not quick to trust."

A sore spot for him, Rogue can feel it. It's nothing personal, she repeats, but he's stopped believing her.

Jean adds, "Considering she spent the better part of a year alternating between being out on the streets and living in a psychiatric ward, she's remarkably well-adjusted. Even more so, factoring in the nature of her mutation."

Rogue's mouth twists. The good doctor is ever so generous.

"She's like a lot of the students," Cyclops urges. "Like Jubilee, especially. The ones coming from the hardest backgrounds are the ones with such a sense of humor about them. Not fifteen minutes after being attacked, Rogue was giving me a hard time about my piloting."

Jean smiles. "You can hardly blame her for that."

"See? That's what I mean, a sense of humor." He takes her hand again. "Charles sorted you out. He'll do the same for Rogue, if she'll give him a chance."

"I wouldn't tell her it's that simple," Jean cautions. "It didn't go well yesterday, to say the least. And after…Whatever Charles decides, it'll be the best thing for her."

Getting to her feet swiftly, Rogue marches away. If that's supposed to be comforting, Dr. Poor-Excuse-for-a-Psychic is missing the mark completely. Everyone in her life who's ever done her wrong has hidden behind that line. Her father was the worst offender.

_Please, please stop blaming him. He was protecting us both. _

He was protecting himself from the school board, Rogue returns savagely, loping noiselessly down the stairs. You can't lie to me. I know what he told you behind my back. "If we let her leave the house, they'll think we're negligent parents. They'll run me out of my job and us out of town." And then what? You know.

_Oh, no, baby. No. You know he didn't mean it._

He said, "She's not even ours." It wasn't the first time, either. He was planning to send me to Southaven even before you landed yourself in the emergency room. You gave him an excuse, and all because you didn't believe me. I didn't have to touch anyone after David to know that my skin controls me and not the other way around.

Stopping abruptly, Rogue drops her weight onto a chair in the little island of furniture in front of Professor Xavier's classroom. She presses her knuckles to her face to keep in the impulse to snarl and tear up the seat cushions. Between her momma's shame and Logan's, it's hard to tell where her own even begins.

Rogue gets up to pace. She should throw herself at the mercy of the Professor. That's what her momma wants, and, as much as he hates to, Logan agrees. Only, there's something underneath. Logan the Absolutist is conflicted because the part of him that's making her bare her teeth is also telling her she needs to do for herself.

Later, she compromises. She takes off down the hall at a run. I'll talk to the Professor later.

The smell of new food has her skidding to a halt outside the dinning hall. How is it that Logan can be so hungry so often? He doesn't even eat all that much between meals. She clearly hadn't absorbed the full benefits of his metabolism.

Technically, it isn't dinnertime yet, but the woman putting out the food doesn't say anything when Rogue picks up a tray. Chicken nuggets with fries and lots of ketchup. The woman places a cookie on her plate, winking vertically with a glittering golden eye. Unsettled in the face of manners, Rogue smiles weakly, grabs a water bottle, and ducks out the back.

Outside is a refuge again. Taking a seat on a bench, she sets the tray down next her and eats mechanically.

She always imagined that if she took in Logan – it's sick, how often she thought about it even while swearing to prove she had the self-control to resist – it would be like drinking from a magic well of self-assurance. And why? Because he made her feel safe. Because he exercised restraint.

Another sore spot.

Restraint was something he could manage because he let her keep everything between them on her terms, thin as paper and focused solely on what she could do for him. An exchange of services and companionship for money.

With a grimace, she takes a long swig of water. The word "whore" can't be suppressed, even though she never once felt like one and it's the last thing he wanted her to be. Still, the shame he feels isn't just because of her age, it's because of her disadvantage. If he had offered to pay her, would she have been insulted enough to leave? She liked him from the beginning, but that isn't the point. She wanted his money, she wanted his roof, and she wanted his company. She would've put up with a lot to secure those things for herself.

That's his take on it. Not flattering and not fair. It wasn't like that, and she could explain better if she had the space to draw her own conclusions.

* * *

"Rogue."

She turns her head swiftly. "Bobby." Shouldn't he be in class?

"Rogue, what did you do?" He sits down on the bench beside her, his expression pinched. "They say you're stealing other mutants' powers."

Earnestly, she leans forward. "No, no – I-I borrowed his power."

Fiercely, he replies, "You never use your power against another mutant."

Disappointment settles on her shoulders. Bobby is just like David. Just as quick to judge. "I had no choice." Off his darkening face, she quickly continues, "No, you – you have to understand me."

"If I were you, I'd get myself out of here."

How could he understand her? The All-American boy who welcomed and defended her yesterday thought she was a decent person. She'd proved him wrong. It doesn't matter that she had a good reason this time. There's a code of conduct and she violated it. Personal sacrifice, as Logan knows, is the inevitable penalty.

Very precisely, knowing exactly, she replies, "What do you mean?"

"Listen, the students are freaked. Professor Xavier is furious. I don't know what he'll do with you."

Rogue swallows. The best thing. He's got so many other people to think about, a whole world of mutants. He'll do the best thing for all of them, even if she doesn't agree.

"I think it'll be easier on your own," Bobby says emphatically.

That hurts. She squeezes her eyes shut against it. Especially coming from someone who'd been so nice. Now he somehow even smells mean. The rumors she could laugh off, but not the confrontation. It's too unexpected. John lulled her off her guard.

"You should go."

Her eyes snap open. Bobby has stirred the confusion again. She knows he's wrong, because Cyclops wants to help her and Logan's here. She can't do it alone, she's tried. And for once it's actually easier to stay than it is to go.

But he's right, too, because it's the inevitable penalty.

Chin jutting doggedly forward, she pushes herself off the bench. She makes it just a few steps before she turns back. Who is he speaking for? The other students? Is this really want they want? Bobby's expression may as well be chiseled. His eyes are ice, which shouldn't be as surprising as it is. Even freaks have standards. She takes off at a jog.

Not a sacrifice, she asserts. A stand. She has no right to feel as empowered as she does – what is this but another instance of someone forcing her hand – but it's the last time. She's done being jerked around. The door's open.

An approving growl echoes, at odds with the calming effect he's trying to have. She pushes him back and keeps her momma from speaking. They both care, but neither believes that's enough to save her from herself. So why listen?

Rogue stops short at the closed door to her room. She eases it open, relieved to see that Kitty is curled up asleep. In and out, all she really needs is her cloak. John's lighter, too. At least he tried.

Pocketing it and folding her cloak over her arm, she goes to stand above Kitty. The other girl looks so relaxed. She must be done with all her finals. She'll probably call her parents later on to tell them how she thinks she did and to ask about their day. If Rogue were a person like Kitty, she wouldn't even want to leave. She'd trust people. Rogue envies her abilities. She wants the power to walk through walls. Annoyingly symbolic.

She used to be able to justify taking what she wanted from people. Just a brush, maybe a little more. Kitty would sleep peacefully through the morning, and Rogue could make believe she's invincible again. No point hesitating. Her experiment in morality didn't work.

Except now Logan's in her head, and he won't let her raise her hand. Hot tears sting. Fine. Take Bobby's side.

The soothing motion. She hurts herself every time she takes in more.

"So what?" she barks.

Groggily, Kitty starts to lift her head, but Rogue's already out the door. She's walking to Logan's room again, only this time he's not there. She goes directly for the closet, shaking open his hiking bag and pulling out the money she earned fair and square. She stuffs the cash into her pockets, tucking the bigger bills into her well-worn shoes.

John's room is just around the corner. Sprawled out on the floor, he glances up from his book when she edges into the doorframe. Two younger boys playing video games at a computer don't take their eyes off the screen.

"How do you get to the roof?" she asks John.

The question intrigues him enough to hop up and toss aside _Guerilla Warfare_ by Che Guevara. How pretentious.

John struts down the hall, expecting her to follow. "You came to the right man, Roguey. That's my make-out spot."

"I bet you've scorched tons of initials with little hearts around them up there."

"I'm not one to kiss and tell, but let's just call it all your roommates."

"Tawny, too?"

"The one's who've developed breasts."

"So not Kitty, either."

"You really are a bitch." He pushes open a thick door under an exit sign. He must've disabled the alarm awhile back.

"That's a fire hazard," she points out, going through.

He jogs up the stairs. "What do I care?"

"And I'm the bitch."

A slight wind pushes hair into her face as she emerges onto the flat portion of the roof. They're on top of one of the castle-like towers. She peers over the side, which is a view over the gate and down the winding lane to the main road. The sun is just starting to go orange. She'll be able to get a ride well before dark.

"When did you hook up with Kitty?" she asks idly, trailing her gloved hand over the stonework as she walks around the edge.

"Right after she broke up with her ex."

Rogue turns her head to cock an eyebrow at him. "But she ended up with Bobby."

John, who has his arms folded across his chest, shrugs. "I don't do the dating thing."

"I see." She reaches into the pocket of her jeans and presents his lighter.

"Delinquent," he grins, holding out his hand. Catching it, he flips it open and lights a flame. "Nice one."

"I figured I owed it to you, since I'm depriving you of the chance to add my name to your list of conquests."

"I wouldn't speak so soon," he replies, concentration on rolling a ball of fire from the center of palm to the back of his hand. "I left, too. Stole a bunch of stuff, joined a mutant supremacist gang." He pops the flame, intact, up into the air where it puffs into smoke. "Came back, obviously."

"Mutant supremacist gang? Che isn't exactly reformed reading, now is it?"

"Here or prison." He flips the top of his lighter closed. "I actually met Jubilee while I was in LA. She was paying her way doing tricks at the mall. Kind of funny, since her parents were so loaded before they lost everything. Bad business, ended up murdered."

"Okay. I get it. My life isn't so bad. Blah, blah." Rogue leans against the side. "Only Jubilee never sparkled anyone to death, and you didn't kill your foster parents."

"That's the thing, maybe I did. Maybe the fire triggered my mutation, maybe I started it in my sleep. I have no idea."

God. Rogue's chin droops. "Do you ever think they're right about us?"

"That we're dangerous? Hell yes we are. And if they try anything, we'll prove it to them."

"Not what I meant. I'm different than you and pretty much everyone here. I don't mean to be dangerous. I just am." Watching her shadow flicker, Rogue says evenly, "I killed a woman, and I use her whenever I need to. I can say I'm a victim because that's true, but I'm safer locked up and that's true, too. Only I don't care about safer. I just care about myself."

"Who doesn't? We're all selfish fucks. That's about the only thing mutants and humans have in common."

Rogue smiles grimly, putting her arms through the sleeves of her cloak. "You're an asshole, John. And I can't say I'm not glad."

He shrugs again. Scratches his forehead. "Any farewell messages?"

"Just one. Tell Logan thanks for everything, but I couldn't wait for a lift." She swallows thickly. "Tell him he needs to take care of himself and not to come looking for me."

"Like he'll listen."

He won't, and Rogue doesn't really want him to. But some things are out of even Logan's control, and maybe that's what's so empowering. "I don't think he'll have much of a choice." The last button of her coat secured, she backs up toward John and loosens her shoulders. "Don't let anyone know until they figure it out, okay?"

"On one condition." The smirk on John's face tells her exactly what he's after.

"Pft. A goodbye kiss is out of the question, unless you have a thing for comas."

"You're confusing me for a romantic." His grin makes him look like a little boy. "I was actually looking to cop a goodbye feel."

Rogue, hand on her hip, wonders how someone so smug can be so charming.

It all comes back to Logan, doesn't it?

Shaking her head, she presses John in a hug. "Like I said, no sounding the alarm on me, okay?" She playfully pushes him away when he squeezes her ass.

He puts up his hands, backing up further. "Roguey, it's your life. Do what you like."

"I always get around to that. See you if I see you, Sparky."

"Sounds about right."

Filling up her lungs, she takes off at a sprint. This is how she left Southaven, with a leg up over the side and nosedive that turned into a last-second arc.

John's whoops follow her down and up. "Fucking beautiful!" he exults.

Rogue smiles against the wind, her entire body humming with Carol's strength. One of the few promises she's ever kept. Sitting cross-legged in the dark at the end of a hero's bed, listening to the beat of a heart monitor.

She lets go with an abandon she hasn't dared in a long time.

_I love it when you let me fly._ There's gratitude in the bell-voice, along with an apology. The doctors are to blame, but Carol was the one who provoked the monster, brought on the dark. Only when she flies is it worth it.

Warmth propels her as she makes loops and tight spirals. Rogue can't look back, not yet.


	16. Breathe, chapter 7

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track three / "BREATHE"**

**BREATHE, BREATHE IN THE AIR / DON'T BE AFRAID TO CARE**

_He seems to genuinely wanna help you, and that's a rare thing." _

_He tilts his chin closer. "For people like us."_

– _Logan –_

If Logan gets turned around one more time in this noxious maze of adolescent hormones Xavier calls a school, a gouged-out X is going to mark the spot in triplicate on the door to every room he checks.

For the fifteenth time in twice as many minutes, he wonders where the flying fuck Marie could've gone off to hide herself so completely. She wasn't at dinner like he expected, she wasn't thumb wrestling with the All-American and the mouse by the fountain, she wasn't ducked inside any of the supply closets waiting for him to pass by, and she wasn't crying her eyes out in her room when he'd made his first two rounds. Now on round three, he's so intent on finding her he's stopped worrying about what the hell he's supposed to say. Small favors.

A toilet flushes to his left, and he has the door pushed open before he realizes there's a big difference between a ladies' room at a truck stop and one in a girls' dorm – namely the alarm behind the shrieks. A blast of some ripe odor with enough kick to propel him back into the hallway teaches him that a bathroom in a mutant girls' dorm is another matter altogether.

Trying not to choke, he lurches down the hall until his watery eyes hit upon a balcony. Fresh air instantly evaporates the effects of what amounts to biochemical warfare. He spits the lingering taste into the thick ivy growing up the side of the mansion. Xavier could raise himself a good little army if he so chose. Except the business of making soldiers is dirty one, and he's the clean hands type. To become a perfect soldier the man has to die. Can't nurture his humanity and then expect him to win at any cost or even to do what's necessary to save his own life. Way things are going, pacifists are sitting ducks and a bunch of do-gooders led by a Boy Scout aren't much better off.

Not that he plans to say anything. For one, the line between their problems and his is already too thin for comfort. For another, he'd never let Marie stay any place that'd teach her to be less than she is.

He huffs out a snort. Let her. Logan slips a hand into his jacket to pull out a cigar and a book of matches. Possessive and protective. An even thinner line.

Savoring long drags, he watches the last minutes of sunset.

Without doing anything, he knows he's going about this all wrong. His plan for after finding her is caveman at best. Shove the wrinkled fax he has in his back pocket into her hand, haul her by the elbow down to the Professor's office, and plant her in a chair in front of a microphone. Stand there beside her, at least, so she knows he's taken an interest. Listen to her when she talks, even though he'd rather she didn't.

This whole mess waiting to happen with the fax and the bad news from the Drs. Mc and Mac, and Xavier calling in Logan to get his say so before even mentioning anything to Marie…None of it sits right.

Of course she'll want to testify about Southaven; she was raring to do it the minute Ole Blue opened her lying mouth about it. But Xavier laid out a lot of consequences that Marie's probably never considered, wanting to know if he thought they'd be asking too much of her if they go forward now. Role of guardian again.

Thing is, he flat-out does think it's asking too much. She's the only willing witness, and, supposedly, she doesn't exist on record or in the memory of any clinic personnel McCoy's people could get a hold of. Patient 579, the undisclosed minor who attacked Captain Danvers, sure. Marie D'Ancanto? Never heard of her.

Even MacTaggart's so-called sympathetic colleagues are tight-lipped about why they left. As if it's less morally justifiable to breach contract than it is to stand idly by while science plays god with nature.

He stretches his fingers out to keep the metal back. Government funding, under the table experiments, possible military connection – He tugs at his collar in lieu of his tag. Yeah, Marie's situation hits close to home. He admitted that to Xavier, same time he told him if he were in Marie's place he'd want to go at the bastards with everything he's got, uphill battle or no. Kid can handle anything thrown at her, he said.

His gut reaction was just the opposite. If anonymity is a mutant's first defense, no matter how they play it, win or lose she'll leave that courtroom Mutant Enemy Number One. By testifying, Marie's either going to make herself a sacrificial lamb or a scapegoat. Real simple.

But whether or not it'll be worth it is no one's call but Marie's.

Xavier seems to respect that, and Logan figures that's why he got brought in first. When the chips fall Marie doesn't mind having him tell her what to do, and if he'd given in to his knee-jerk first impulse he'd have plowed right through any of her resolve.

Tyranny of others' influence, Xavier called it last night. Today he elaborated: "Her youth and her mutation make her a particularly impressionable young woman." Beneath the five-dollar words Logan heard, "Don't let your fucked up sense of the world redefine her." Fair enough, so he agreed not to intervene. Old man said wrong again. Looked down at the papers he'd been grading, smiled, and told him he needed to learn to navigate the third way between laissez-faire and protectionalism. Logan's reply, that Marie's not a damned economic principle, set him off chuckling.

Raving lunatics, every last one of these jokers. And it's starting to affect Logan, because his response was to say he'd talk to her about it and get his ass-backward self out of there to do it direct.

Talk to her. Practically every on-the-level conversation he's ever tried to have with that girl ended with her taking a hike. So what's he want to do about it? Block her exits. Force her hand in the direction of what he thinks she wants but has no real goddamn clue about because she's a seventeen year-old kid and he's a character-flawed roughneck who spent three weeks on the verge of fucking her and just a day and a half trying to be her friend.

Christ.

At the sound of Marie's other name, Logan's hearing perks up. He steps back into the hall as Storm and the mouse head his way.

"I mean, it's definitely a tight squeeze but we can manage," the mouse shrugs. He thinks her name is Kitten but it's too ridiculous to say out loud.

"You," he says, making her jump and questioningly point to herself. "Yeah, I mean you. You seen her?"

Swiveling her torso, she looks awkwardly to Storm, who places her hands on the mouse's shoulders. "Logan, we make a habit here of addressing people by name. It helps avoid confusion. 'Kitty' would be your first proper noun. I imagine 'Rogue' is your second?"

He blows out a mouthful of smoke. "That'd be the one."

Kitty – almost as ridiculous – pauses to cough pointedly behind her fist before replying, "I thought I heard her come into the room before dinner."

"You didn't talk to her?" he barks.

Eyes gone big, she presses into Storm. "I was napping?"

Logan forces himself to relax. "All right. Keep an eye out for me."

Kitty sticks her thumb up high. "Right-o," she replies and side-steps away with an overly chipper, "Bye!"

Storm wipes the pinched expression off her face when he turns to her. Wouldn't want to be rude. "I'm sure there's no cause for alarm," she says neutrally.

"Look, I can't find her anywhere. Xavier needs her."

"Did you check – "

"Inside, outside. I checked. Last I saw her, she was eatin' lunch. What about you?"

"I haven't seen her since last night. I was just going to extend my invitation to have tea again." Storm tucks her arms in front of her. "When you spoke with her, how did she seem?"

"Didn't say I spoke with her, I said I saw her. She was with that Pyro kid. She was actin' a little strange, but she seemed fine."

Suddenly, Storm's subdued demeanor has a much fiercer presence. "How could you have gone an entire day without talking to her after what happened?"

"Hey, she's got a right to some breathing room. She wants to talk, she knows I'll listen. I don't see any point in smothering her."

"I don't suppose it occurred to you that Rogue is in a very vulnerable position, that she might need you to be the one to talk to her." Storm presses her long fingers briefly to her forehead. "You probably hurt her feelings by not seeking her out earlier."

He clenches his teeth around his cigar, face impassive.

Storm shakes out her too-straight hair. "Come with me. I have John in detention now. Maybe he'll have an idea of where she is."

Logan keeps pace behind her and watches as the tenseness in her shoulders works itself out.

With some grace Storm finally says, "There's no exact science to understanding teenagers. For instance, right now I'm struggling with John. His opinions about ordinary people are very violent, but he is undeniably perceptive. I often can't bring myself to tell him he's wrong. Still, I don't waste the time he has with me in detention. We debate, or he helps me write letters to Hiram Prison. I know it seems counterintuitive, but it's made John realize that being a mutant doesn't place him above the law. He particularly likes writing to Elijah Cross. He's a reformed mutant supremacist."

Match made right in heaven. Typical that Marie went and made nice with the school criminal. Can't have her making life simple for herself.

At the door to her classroom, Storm pauses. "Being a mutant, especially at that age, can be an incredibly lonely thing. A lot of the time all they need is someone who will identify with them."

That part sticks, and Storm sees it. She opens the door with a smile.

Before Pyro even has time to turn around, Logan's already smelled Marie all over him. The smirking little bastard adjusts his chair so he can sit casually. "Can I help you?" Pyro asks.

Logan walks into the room slowly, fists tucked under his elbows to keep from doing anything satisfying. "Ten seconds, bub."

"Logan – "

"She named herself 'Rogue.'" Pyro snickers through his nose. "And you're surprised she's missing?"

"Missing?" he grits out, same time as Storm, in dismay, says, "Oh, no."

"Oh, yeah," Pyro returns. "Basically said to tell you thanks but no thanks, and – " He rockets one hand off the other. "Vft. Bye-bye birdie. Not too long ago, either."

Logan moves to rest his hands on the table on either side of Pyro, the lit tip of his cigar coming within a few inches of the kid's snot-nose. "Where?"

"Didn't say." Pyro blows out Logan's cigar, sending smoke back in his eyes.

Not even blinking against the sting, he takes his time believing what he's just been told. Kid's starting to get scared, which is fine by Logan. Better than him smelling like Marie.

Going for broke, Pyro pulls an exaggerated face. "Now I know why wolverines are called skunk – "

"Shut up." Logan throws down his cigar and heads toward the door.

Storm, who does not look pleased, sighs. "The Professor will be able to find her," she says, adding for Pyro, "And you're lucky he can."

"Aw, come on. You can't blame me – "

Logan cuts in, "I want her found sooner rather than later. She could be anywhere."

Storm nods. "Exactly why we need to see Charles. He can use Cerebro."

More gibberish. He's real sick of this shit, but he follows her down to the lower levels without comment.

The steel door at the end of the hall parts as they walk through.

"Where is she?" Logan demands.

Cyclops looks over. "Who?"

"Rogue." Xavier's a lot quicker on the uptake. "She's gone."

Logan's about to make something of Cyclops's look of accusation when Jean steps into the hallway next to Storm, hugging herself slightly. "This way," she says.

* * *

Immediate action, if not the kind he'd prefer, appeases him. Standing in front of another steel door, he's able to affect a measure of patience, though it's tested by the three a.m. science fiction double feature quality of the eye-scan and robo-voice.

Xavier leads Logan out onto a long ramp. "Welcome to Cerebro."

Raising his gaze from the unnecessarily long way down, he looks up at the arched ceiling. "It certainly is a big, round room."

"The brainwaves of mutants are different from average human beings. This device amplifies my powers, allowing me to locate mutants across great distances. That's how I intend to find Rogue."

Great. Then what's with all the problems? "Why don't you just use it to find Magneto?"

"I've been trying, but he seems to have found some way to shield himself from it."

Naturally. "How would he know how to do that?"

"Because he helped me build it."

That one's a little more of a surprise. He chalks it up to another riff on "it's complicated." These people need to get their stories straight, and fast.

Xavier slips a metal helmet over his bald dome. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Logan accepts the motion to get on with it. Outside the closed doors, he wonders just how powerful this amplification contraption is.

He turns to Jean. "Have you ever…"

"Used Cerebro?" Her eyebrows go up, but she shakes her head. "No. It takes a degree of control and, ah, for someone like me, it's…"

"Dangerous." First time Cyclops has unlocked his jaw since finding out Marie is gone.

Between the disappointment in her he's giving off and the repression he's forcing on Jean, it's a lot clearer to Logan how much he doesn't want to be that fucking guy. So he'll find Marie and he'll talk with her. Not at her. He'll stop being so damn thick and let her know that he gets her. He thinks that's all she ever really wanted from him.

Credit where credit's due. The woman to his left, who's more like the eye than the hurricane, is the one who saw it, just as clearly as the woman to his right knew that for the first time in fifteen years he's incapable of walking away from someone. It's like he's completely transparent to them. Has to be an estrogen thing.

Xavier wheels out of Cerebro, his expression encouraging. "She's at the train station."

"Where is it?"

"A few miles west of here."

Simple. The way he likes it. He starts to go.

"Logan, you can't leave the mansion. It's just the opportunity that Magneto needs."

Hadn't even occurred to him, but what the hell did it matter? "Listen, I'm the reason she took off."

"We had a deal."

That's the last thing he wants thrown back into his face. He could say his deal with Marie trumps it, but they'd never brokered one. Things between them are up in the air and had been even before this place.

"She's all right," Storm says reasonably. "She's just upset."

"Storm, Cyclops. Find her. See if you can talk to her."

They follow orders but Xavier's got to know it has to be him, if only for the gesture. He hurt Marie's feelings. Damn it, that means something.

He looks to Jean and sympathy is written all over her face. Still, she purses her lips. No help from that corner. Turning, he walks away.

At the elevator, he hears _What will you do?_

You gonna keep me prisoner, old man? We had a deal.

Hell or high water, he stands by his word. Logan holds that thought strong in his head until he's on the main level, until he feels Xavier's presence recede. At which point he heads directly for the garage.

This once, he'll make a liar out of himself. For her. He can live with that.

Cyclops's collection of automobiles runs modern for Logan's taste, but he can't deny the anticipation for speed he feels when he walks the Harley-Davidson VRSCA V-Rod out the door and revs up the engine.

The bike rides steady as they get a feel for each other's curves. She feels almost too light to hold his weight and the brake is too touchy. Once he figures out her triggers, though, she purrs under him like a dream. He glances down at the speedometer and notices three red arrows. The possibilities are too alluring to pass up.

Whoa, shit! The abrupt acceleration jerks him back. He leans into it, the wind and the speed pulling his mouth into a wide, reckless grin. The beginning of a beautiful friendship, no doubt.

The train station comes into sight over the next hill. As he lets the bike breathe so he can park her, he thinks about how much of a selfish bastard he'd have to be to throw Marie on the back and just ride off with the kid. Hell of a time, except that whenever he looked at her he'd know he'd ripped the chance for a life right out from under her.

Place inside is as crowded as he expected. A quick look at the big board tells him track three is boarding for Toronto. If she's not on that train he never really knew her.

Once onboard, he spots the back of her green hood two cars into his search. The scent of her frustrated misery makes his approach grim.

"Hey, kid."

Her eyes jerk up to meet his. She looks drained, and it's more than the flight. There's a wary silence behind her gaze, like she won a battle but only just.

Logan takes the empty seat beside her and sighs. Finding her is a relief, but he'd counted on defiant, not subdued.

She closes her eyes briefly and looks away.

"I'm sorry about last night." It's not the moral high ground he cares about, it's the better chance of forgiveness.

No hesitation, she offers it. "Me, too."

"You runnin' again?"

Tightly, she replies, "I heard the Professor was mad at me."

"Well, who told you that?"

"A boy at school."

Christ, she sounds young. Looks it, too. "Pyro?" he guesses, wishing he'd taught him a lesson earlier.

"No." She smiles thinly. "A nice boy. He said I wasn't welcome."

"And you took off without a word because of that?" It's a job, keeping the offended tone from his voice. "Xavier's not mad, and I'm not the only one out here lookin' for you."

The crease in her brow gets deeper. "Why'd you come?"

"You really thought I wouldn't?"

"I don't know." Marie slumps, chin cradled on both gloved palms, sharp elbows digging into her thighs. "That's not true. I knew, and I left anyway. I just wish they'd stopped you."

"Yeah, well, I'm here."

"That just makes things harder. I am so sick and I'm so tired of putting people at risk. That's why I left."

More than hurt feelings. He's pissed at himself for thinking it would be that easy. Still his fault. "I should've talked to you sooner."

She waves that off with one hand, sitting up to look out the window. "I know what you think anyway." She sounds resigned. Too certain.

"'Bout what?"

Her shoulders lift and fall on a breath. After a long pause, he realizes she's not going to say anything more.

Logan fumbles for a new tactic. "I came to tell you that the trial you wanted, Southaven and all that, it can happen. Only if you want it to. No one's gonna lie to you about the chances. So far it's your word against theirs and there're no records to back you up. But you got the truth, and that'll count for something."

She drops her head against the seat, bottom lip caught painfully between her teeth. "No." It's hardly a more than a moan.

"It's what you wanted before."

"Sure, when I thought there was proof." Almost at a hiss, she lets out, "Whatever they did to Carol to make her want to die – You have no idea how…blank she was. And they're going to get away with it. I-I can't do anything. I never could. I just – I give up, Logan. On everything."

"Kid, decide whatever you want. But there's no givin' up."

"Why not?" Her look is sharp. "You have."

Logan doesn't bother asking how she knows. "I'm done with that, and I have you to thank," he tells her. "No – stop. Listen."

Mutiny flickers crosses her face. Then her lips part and she sits forward.

Quietly, he continues, "I can't even show you the scars from all the times I've tried to kill myself, because they just disappear."

No shock registers, like she knows that, too.

"But when you touched me, and I was lying there with no healing ability to rely on – that's the closest to death I've ever been."

Her face starts to twist into a grimace. Damn it, she's going to hear him out.

"And I realized I didn't like it."

Something like understanding dawns, softening her face.

"Okay, you're a powerful girl, Rogue." It's strange to call her that and it makes her blink, but she said she prefers it. He wants everything to be on her terms. "And I understand if that frightens you. But if you don't get help then your power is going to be your curse. It will plague you. You understand?"

She's motionless enough to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling. "You think I should go back."

He has to look away. "No, I think you should follow your instincts."

Frustration spikes softly. Enunciating clearly, she replies, "The first boy I ever kissed ended up in a coma for three weeks. I can still feel him inside my head."

Inside her head. Did that explain the tyranny of influence?

"And it's the same with you." She says it like a confession.

His life force, his personality. His memories.

Marie presses her eyes closed, trailing tears down her cheeks. The deep breath she draws in is shaky with suppressed pain. He lifts his arm to rest his hand on the top of her head. Another breath and she leans against his chest like she's letting go and grabbing tight all at once. Her nearly inaudible gasps strike him as sobs.

Voice pitched almost at a murmur, he says, "There's not many people that'll understand what you're going through. But I think this guy Xavier is one of them. He seems to genuinely wanna help you, and that's a rare thing." He tilts his chin closer. "For people like us."

She sits up slowly, her eye contact so compelling it takes the jerk of the train to make him remember where they are. He lifts his arm, looking around. She sits back heavily.

He's going to have to duck into the bathroom when the ticket guy comes around, but that's all right. They'll ride this one out.

"So, what d'you say?" He turns back to her. "Give these geeks one more shot?"

Her lip quirks.

"Come on, I'll take care of you."

Marie glances away. When she looks at him again, that quiet sass he likes so much is back. "You promise?"

"Yeah," he replies dryly, swallowing immense relief. "Yeah, I promise."

There's a certain amount of satisfaction in her profile as she looks out the window, and he feels the same. Marie knows he doesn't mean just until he gets her back to the mansion or until he gets restless or even until she gets sick of him. His promise ties them both to a future.

Twenty-six days ago, he wouldn't have recognized the feeling crushing his chest. Now he can cop to it. The girl's gotten under his skin, and it's complicated and it's going to take some getting used to.

It's worth it, though. Having Marie's trust.


	17. Great Gig in the Sky, chapter 1

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track four / "GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"**

**ENOUGH ROPE TO HANG HERSELF**

"_Believe in what? You made – " Suddenly, she has to laugh. _

_It's too ironic and too hopeless not to. "You made us into a d-disease!" _

– _Rogue –_

Even seated, feet solidly on the floor, this moment feels to Rogue a lot like standing on thin air. Just as if she were defying gravity, the nervous energy collecting under her ribcage pumps currents of warmth beneath her skin, straight to her head. She's slightly dizzy and too pleased to do more than dart glances at Logan.

It's absurd, the idea of him and her. A solid unit. Logan and Rogue. Never-say-goodbye, them-against-the-world, together-forever friends-maybe-more. Years spread out in front of them, decades. He promised her something too good to be true, and he's in her head enough that she believed him. Yeah, kind of absurd. Definitely risky. But no more so than standing on thin air, and Rogue's done that too many times to be scared of the feeling anymore.

She glances past Logan to the mother and son whose casual touching had bothered her earlier. The boy, face still red from the temper tantrum he'd thrown, vrooms his matchbox car happily on his mom's leg. All it had taken was a hug from behind and everything in his world was okay. Rogue wonders what would induce Logan to put his arm around her again.

With a piercing squeal, the train jerks to a halt. Logan's arm comes across her chest to keep her from flying forward. She grasps his leather coat, heart in her throat where Carol's dog tags hum against her skin. A briefcase hits the wall. Like aluminum, the train crumples and pulls apart.

All of it metal. Magneto.

Light flickers as she stands slowly, turning to kneel on the seat she'd been sitting on. A lingering tear rolls down her check, because he's here for Logan and it's nobody's fault but her own.

The expression on Logan's face is one of startled readiness. Sparks cascade down the ripped-apart hole at the end of their car. Cape billowing, an older man in a red helmet floats in. He's a sci-fi supervillain and he should be laughable. Anxiously gripping the top of her seat, Rogue looks up at Logan. He looks back, equally unsure of what, exactly, this mutant who wants a war is capable of.

Logan takes a hold of her shoulder, impelling her to sit back against the seat next to where he stands. Turning her head, Rogue makes brief eye-contact with the little boy's horrified mother. There are an awful lot of people on this train and, from what the Professor told her, Magneto isn't the type to lose any sleep over collateral damage.

A similar thought is probably going through Logan's head. His claws shoot out right in front of her face.

"You must be Wolverine." Magneto shares the Professor's vaguely English accent, only it's the opposite of calming.

Rogue's adrenaline builds as she calculates just how much strength it will take to rip one of these chairs from the bolts and clobber him with it. She half-stands when Logan starts to move forward, but one raised hand, encased in a black leather glove, stops him dead.

"That remarkable metal doesn't run through your entire body, does it?"

Logan's arms go crucifix.

She reaches for the chair, but the armrest jerks up to slam into her stomach. The force of the hit tips her back into her seat and the other armrest crosses over her chest to pin her there. With all of Carol's strength, she can't pry them apart.

Magneto doesn't even spare her a glance as he renders her helpless. His attention is focused on sadism. Logan's claws spread apart slowly, each millimeter punctuated by his suppressed grunts. Pain rolls his eyes back into his head. Magneto lifts him into the air.

"Stop!" Her command comes out more hysterical than threatening. "Stop it!" She'd say more, but the armrests don't allow her to gulp enough air to spew out the insults and profanities that would give her the illusion of bravado.

Through clenched teeth, Logan jerkily grits out, "What the hell do you want with me?"

"You?" Magneto chuckles. "My dear boy, whoever said I wanted you?"

Rogue stops fighting her restraints. Her. Not Logan. Magneto wants her. Relief and terror battle it out. With what must be a tremendous effort, Logan turns to look at her. She can feel his panic in her own mind. Rogue's eyes are on Magneto, who, aside from the getup, is the picture of amused elegance.

"Southaven," she says, getting him to turn his attention from Logan for the first time. Rogue sets her trembling jaw. Magneto kidnapped Senator Kelly and now he wants her. Southaven is the only link between them. It makes as much sense as any of this does.

"Yes, I know what they did to you there," Magneto answers gravely. His eyes sweep over the silent, shocked people huddled in their seats. "Mankind can be so cruel."

"Leave them out of this," Rogue says quickly. She grimaces an apology at Logan. He's choking on the need to sink his claws into Magneto's throat; she can feel the echo of his fury. But there's only one way out of this, and a fight isn't it. "And let him go."

It's a bargain and all three of them know it. Logan, still floored, renews his pantomime struggle. Magneto acquiesces with a slight nod, pointing his index finger. Logan flies black, outstretched arms breaking the frame as his body shoots through the narrow doorway to hit against the wall. He falls to the ground, unconscious.

Rogue whips her head around to glare at Magneto.

"That was necessary," he explains evenly.

Like hell.

"My methods are not Charles Xavier's. But that is exactly why I, and I alone, can give you the justice you seek, for yourself and for all of our kind. You have seen what they will do to us, and you are right not trust them for it."

The armrests twist into their former position, seemingly freeing her to make the choice that's not a choice, just as the recruitment speech isn't a recruitment speech. There's something else behind it. He wants her for a specific purpose, and she's not going to like it.

"How do you know so much about me?"

Maybe she can stall for time. Logan said he wasn't the only one looking for her.

"I am in possession of certain files that were never meant for public consumption."

Her poker face falters, and the curve of his mouth tells Rogue he knows full well that he has her. Because he has the Southaven evidence.

_It's all we need! Once people know the truth, they won't stand for it. Not for one minute._

Rogue bites down on her bottom lip in an effort to push back Carol's blind enthusiasm. In its wake, the fact remains the same – Magneto, the enemy, is Rogue's unlikely redeemer.

He holds out his hand, palm up.

Adrenaline still pumping, she lifts herself off the seat. Her feet dangle over the ground as she glides down the aisle. His smile widens when she puts her hand in his.

"Welcome to the Brotherhood."

The heavy knot in her stomach threatens to drop her to the floor. Only Carol's conviction keeps her hovering. Rogue goes with Magneto but she looks back at Logan, willing him to stay down and get up all at the same time.

A man with yellowish green-tinged skin leaps off the top of the nearest train car, leaving behind a large sack. Magneto pats her hand as they float across the tracks and into the station. When they touch down he continues to hold it, like she's a little girl out on a stroll with her granddad.

"Watch your step, my dear," he cautions.

Rubble and glass are strewn everywhere. Cyclops, eyelids exposed, is slumped over a broken row of seats. A needle sticks out of his neck. The same kind of syringe hangs from Magneto's belt, clearly meant for Rogue. The thought that she couldn't fly fast enough away from him to do any good, even if she wanted to, is less than heartening.

Fangs – Sabretooth, the Professor said – comes out from behind the ticket counter, an unconscious Storm gathered in his arms like a prize. Rogue's hackles raise. There's something wrong and oddly suggestive about the pose. The Logan in her head wants to attack him outright.

"Leave her," Magneto orders.

With a low rumble, Sabretooth drops Storm heavily on her side and steps over her body to fall in line. Jaundice-Man – has to be Toad – keeps too close behind Rogue, grinning a gummy smile. She straightens her posture. Better to be walking out of here on her own two feet than in a bag slung over his shoulder.

Except she doesn't expect to exit out the front doors right into a full police brigade. A dozen black and whites are parked on the lawn and the officers ducked behind them have their guns trained straight ahead.

The police chief has a bullhorn over his mouth. "All right, hold it. Hold it right there. Stay where you are. Put your hands over your heads. Now."

With infinite patience, Magneto lets go of her hand to comply. The two cars directly in front of him rise into the air. He gives the cops under them enough time to run for cover before letting his arms drop and the cars smash impressively on top of two others.

The police officers surge forward. It's to their credit but to no avail when Magneto turns their weapons against them.

"You homo sapiens and your guns," he says disdainfully.

Like cool wind, a whisper echoes in her mind. _Rogue_.

Suddenly, Sabretooth reaches out and takes Magneto by the neck. "That's enough, Erik."

Beside her, Toad turns. "Let them go."

_Now, Rogue. Go now._

The Professor's insisting presence blows through her mind, stirring her up again.

_Anna Marie, that's too dangerous!_

_The files! We have to know –_

"Why not come out where I can see you, Charles?"

_It isn't worth your life. We will find another way._

_It was worth my life!_

_He's right, he's right. Oh, chickadee, listen to him. _

Rogue shakes her head to dislodge the voices. What other way? Magneto has no reason to kill her. She'll trick him and get away with the evidence. She has to. She already turned her back on what's happening at Southaven once. Logan wouldn't have done it the first time.

_You don't really believe it will be that easy._

"Can't you read my mind?" Magneto asks, tapping his helmet.

The Professor must be having two separate conversations while controlling two people at once. No small feat.

"What now? Save the girl? You'll have to kill me, Charles. And what will that accomplish? Let them pass that law and they'll have you in chains with a number burned into your forehead." His gray eyes roll to his peripheral, capturing hers. "But first they'll have you again, locked back in a padded cell. Out of your mind with pain."

It's not the pain, Rogue thinks, it's what they do to you when you're not aware. It's waking up to someone else in your body and a nurse making conversation about the weather. Chunks of you are missing and it feels like you've grown another head, but that's not supposed to matter because you've got clean sheets and green Jell-O.

_It won't be that way_.

_It already is that way, that's the point! _Carol's plea for understanding reverberates like pealing bells.

"Then kill me and find out," Magneto challenges, voice booming again. "Hm? Then release me," he hisses.

Toad's hand gently but firmly wraps around Rogue's upper arm, tugging her forward. Her mind's so cluttered with Southaven and Carol and her momma and Logan and Professor Xavier that she takes a step.

"Fine," Magneto snaps.

Under his power, the gun facing the kneeling police chief cocks. Fires. Rogue jumps out of her skin, coming back to herself and the present. The bullet presses into the petrified man's forehead.

"Care to press your luck, Charles?" Magneto cocks the rest of the guns. "I don't think I can stop them all."

The police chief groans as the bullet sinks in harder.

Sabretooth lets go of Magneto's neck. Toad loosens his grip on Rogue's arm.

"Still unwilling to make sacrifices. That's what makes you weak."

_Not weak. Principled. This isn't the way. Let me help you._

Rogue swallows. Maybe she should…But a helicopter is there, blocking her escape long enough for Magneto to take her hand again.

"Goodbye, Charles," he says in a clipped voice.

_Rogue, I am asking you to trust me. _

She tries to match Magneto's long strides, recklessly letting Carol bring suppressed memories to the surface of her mind so that Professor Xavier will see why she's doing this and hopefully hate her a little less for it. I won't let them make me hurt anyone, she assures him, even though she has no idea what she's getting herself into.

From the pilot's seat, Mystique bares her teeth in a smile. Magneto helps Rogue strap herself in.

As they lift off the green, Rogue looks out the window. The sight of the guns dropping somewhat reassures her. No one got hurt. There was an easy way or a hard way, willing or unwilling, black or white. She chose gray. When Logan wakes up, he won't necessarily understand her choice, but he will forgive her for it. Then he'll come after her. After all, he promised.

She glances over at Magneto, then at the back of Mystique's and Toad's heads. Sabretooth takes up the seat facing her. His black eyes are more vacant than even an animal's ought to be. He's beyond feral, he's simple. Controllable. The way the people at Southaven think all mutants should be. Rogue shudders and presses her eyes closed.

The padded cell Magneto threatened her with wasn't hyperbole. Shame creeps up Rogue's neck. For countless days after she'd taken Carol's life, neither one of them had been enough of a person to assume control. When not sedated, she'd thrown her unfamiliar body against walls, ceilings, doors. She was moved from her isolated single on the second floor to the basement and left in a room with soft walls and only a tiny glass window on the door. She punched through it, slicing open her the soft underside of her upper arm nearly to the bone. For her shocked parents on the other side, it must've been like looking in on a horror film.

No matter what the doctors said, there was reason behind her behavior, method. Carol's lifelong fear of the dark was exacerbated in death, bordering on phobic. If they pushed hard enough, they could break through to the light. If they kept absorbing more lives, they could fill the void in Rogue's head.

She stares up through the black webs floating in front of her vision. A leather glove brushes across her damp forehead, making her flinch.

"Oh, dear. You are in a state."

Mental fatigue clouds her brain. This is no time for coma-narcolepsy, she needs to be on her guard. Rogue tries to say something sarcastic, but it comes out a half-hearted growl. Come on. She's stronger than this.

With gratefully borrowed confidence, she thinks, Me. Awake. Aware. Me.

Steadily, her vision starts to clear. At the sight of Sabretooth's big paws awkwardly pushing a breeze in her direction she almost laughs out loud. Instead, she lets her eyes roll back and her face rest against the window. When in doubt, play possum. That's what Logan would do.

It's a few minutes before Magneto finally speaks, his tone tinged with exasperation. "You can stop that."

Sabretooth makes a grunting noise and the air settles.

Magneto harrumphs lowly. "I should have left you with our friend the Senator, all the good you did me." Fabric ruffles, like he's massaging his neck.

"He was distracted, the big puss." Toad's chuckles get louder at Sabretooth's answering rumble. "Aw."

"Sabretooth," Magneto admonishes archly. "Use your words."

Toad nearly giggles with glee, a disturbing sound that Magneto cuts off quickly.

"I shouldn't think you'd find the destruction of a brother's once skillful mind quite so amusing, Toad."

"At least he had something to lose," Mystique puts in. Her voice ripples with contempt.

Magneto lets out a small snort, but continues in his teacherly voice. "Look at your brother, Toad. And your sister."

Good lord. That's one holiday card Rogue never wants to pose for.

"Humans, with their exploitations and their experiments, have driven them to madness."

The edge of madness, thanks very much. Her balance hasn't failed her yet.

* * *

"They are the reason we do what we must."

Silence follows that rather ominous pronouncement. How annoyingly circumspect of Magneto not to exposit his entire master plan, thinking her beyond hearing.

Rogue cracks open an eyelid. No city lights break up the clear night sky below, only the faint reflection of the last quarter moon. They're over the ocean headed…She racks her brain for an internal compass and an idea of distance covered at approximate speeds. Math is Carol's forte. Logan can track anything. Between the two of them, by the time Rogue feels the helicopter descend, she estimates they've gone thirty to forty miles southeast. Not that that information does her a fat load of good since she can't say with any certainty how much of the trip is over water. Even Carol the Marvel needs rest.

Helicopter landed, Sabretooth reaches for her. Rogue pretends to rouse and gasps a little for show.

"Now, now," Magneto chides, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to assist her out of her seat. "You're perfectly safe with us."

She lets him help her walk, though she flops her head around for the satisfaction of making him lean away. Rogue doesn't press her luck, as much as she wants to know how and why Magneto's playing her. Sabretooth is the maul first, ask questions never type.

Rogue tries to seem oblivious while she looks around for any distinguishing landmarks. Zilch. Rock as far as the eye can see and multiple openings like the one even Toad has to crouch to get through. The ceiling a few feet in is ten times as high, with domed light fixtures where normal caves would have stalactites hanging down.

Curiosity gets the better of her, and she continues forward on her own to peek around the corner. Gleaming sheets of metal section off a couple of rooms, possible exits. Another curve at the end of the tunnel makes Rogue wonder how metallic the rock must be for Magneto to have manipulated it the way he clearly has.

Mystique steps into her line of vision, startling Rogue.

"This way," she prompts, swishing her unclad hips in the direction of the other tunnel entrance. She trails her fingers lightly over Magneto's shoulder when she passes, putting a hint of a smirk on his face.

And Logan thinks their age difference is pervy.

The floor slopes slightly under Rogue's shoes the further they move inside. Even lit up and architecturally designed, there's something inherently dark about going into a cave. The cold and damp doesn't help. To keep Carol's unease at bay, Rogue considers the possibility that Magneto is planning to have her work her cares away down at Fraggle Rock. It's not actually that hard to imagine him overseeing an assembly line of mutants slaving to complete his master machinery of total revolution. Or something.

With such grandiose ideas of what a good lair should include, it's a little anticlimactic when Rogue finds herself taking a seat in an uncomfortable chair, while Magneto goes around to sit on the other side of his desk. Mystique sets a laptop in front of her. "Mutant 579" is emblazoned across the screen.

"These files belong to you now," Magneto says, steepling his gloved fingers together in front of him. "What would you like to do with them?"

Rogue's hands remain her lap. "I want what you tried to trick me with. I-I want a trial. Unless…I mean, the evidence…"

"There's no shortage," Mystique replies, sounding almost bored. Her fingers deftly scroll over to a zip file, pulling up photographs.

She clicks on a few idly. Rogue on her back, making unconscious skin-to-skin contact with a medical cadaver. She'd woken up during that particular test and thought she'd killed somebody. Dr. Rao holding up a large, dried-out husk of skin to the camera, while Dr. Banks lifts the rest of Rogue's stomach to reveal the layer of stone underneath. In the background, the small, blurry outline of Paige Guthrie lies prone. A wave of homesickness washes over Rogue. She misses brothers and sisters she never had. Gloved nurses kneeling on linoleum. Rita looks around helplessly. Vicky, who has Rogue half-dragged out from under the bed, is caught in an expression of revulsion. The color photo clearly captures the milky red eyes, white-yellow fuzz, and drooping whiskers that were the result of long-term contact with short-lived lab rats.

The force of her desire to slam the laptop shut and never, ever have to relive Southaven again is fairly overwhelming. Eyes stinging, she crosses her arms over her chest and concentrates on watching her breath hover in the air.

She doesn't see Mystique click on the sound file, so when Dr. Demille's voice, her slow drawl pitched to be coaxing, comes out of the speakers Rogue doesn't hold back a noise of derision and distress.

"Tell me about Jeffery Garrett."

A long pause follows.

"He didn't regain consciousness for days after you left. We were very concerned."

Rogue hears something unintelligible.

"Pardon?"

She listens to herself respond through clenched teeth, "He doesn't want his power anyway. I just borrowed it."

"I understand your desire to be able to – How did you do it? Blink your eyes and find yourself outside of your bottle, so to speak," she says drolly. Dr. Demille thought it was delightfully amusing to compare mutant powers to TV Land shows. "To be quite serious, we were worried. Mr. Macomb in security woke up in just a day, but not Mr. Garrett. Mutants are better able to withstand your mutation. Isn't that what we discovered when you touched Lora Gibbons?"

"They made me touch her," is her response. Rogue wishes she'd been fiercer. To her own ears, she sounds like a whining teenager.

"I thought we had concluded that the force or impelling agent you feel when you're on the brink of taking from another is the result of your own condition, exacerbated by repressed memories of the trauma you suffered," Dr. Demille says.

"You concluded that. I never wanted to touch that crazy woman. She sees radiation and UV light and thinks it's angels and demons." A chair scrapes against the floor. "Can I go now? Clearly the sedative's wearing off, and I'm sure it's about time for an even bigger dose."

Papers rustle. "Well, whatever you're scheduled for I'll suggest they double it. And keep the door to your room locked at all times."

"They already moved me to my own ward," she complains, though Rogue well remembers how defeated she was. "What if I have to use the bathroom?"

"Changes have to be made. Did you think no one would notice your late night visits to Carol Danvers' room? The security cameras in every corner actually do record."

A long minute. "You don't have to stop me. Please? She's lonely."

"You're lonely, Marie."

"I told you not to call me that."

"Mm. The infamous mutant dissociative name phenomenon. I will not address you as 'The Rogue,' Marie, however much you protest. It's demeaning for both of us."

The clip stops. Rogue wipes her face on the back of her gloves.

"I would have killed the bitch," Mystique states levelly.

"I didn't want to know her any better." Rogue sniffs to clear her sinuses. "What about Carol? Is her file there, too?"

"Yes," Magneto confirms. "However, I rather thought you would appreciate a firsthand account. A Senator Robert Kelly is currently enjoying my hospitality. Along with my special attention."

Now that Carol is so much on the forefront of her mind, Rogue can hardly believe she'd barely recognized Kelly on the news just two days ago. This is the man who based his entire political career on the marginalization of mutants. This is the man who'd blatantly used Carol's story to soften his image after a sex scandal ended in divorce, and then abandoned the issue when a cure didn't come quick enough.

Oh, yes. A firsthand account is just what Carol wants.

Magneto stands, motioning for her to do the same. "My dear, I would like very much to introduce you to the brave new future you will help us usher in."

Okay, that's not something she or Carol likes the sound of.

With one hand resting between her shoulder blades, Magneto leads her through more tunnels.

She tries to pay attention so she knows the way back, but Carol's memories of Senator Kelly spark into her thoughts at random. Kelly walking into her room at Southaven behind flower arrangements and in front of a camera crew. Kelly introducing himself after she won the Medal of Freedom. Kelly shaking hands with her father. Kelly at a press conference praising her heroism prior to her mutation. Always grinning at her, always putting his arm around her. "Captain Danvers, you are more than admirable," he would say. "The future of America looks bright because of your selflessness." Shortly after his last visit, Carol's memories become hazy, incoherent. Dark.

Rogue almost stumbles, and she realizes with a start that she's crossing a bridge that Magneto is creating out of scraps of metal even as they walk. The spectacle allows her to refocus. What kind of place is this, anyway? Now the lair looks more like a dam than a cave.

Once across, Magneto waves his hand to bend back the prison bars keeping Kelly locked inside.

"How are we feeling, Senator? Advanced, I hope."

Confused, Rogue steps into the cell behind Magneto. Only a pair of abandoned leather shoes indicate that Kelly had once been imprisoned here.

Over the sound of waves crashing against rock, Rogue hears a pained, gasping moan.

Jerking his arm back, Magneto rips the barred window out of its mount. Assuming a casual stance, he leans over the side.

The raspy voice of Senator Kelly reaches Rogue's ears. "What the hell have you done to me?"

Magneto chuckles. "Senator, this is pointless," he observes, a smile in his voice.

Rogue edges forward, trying to get a look at Kelly over Magneto's shoulder. She can sort of see him grasping onto the side of the cliff wall, but she can't work out how he could've gotten there.

Continuing, Magneto taunts, "Where would you go? Who would take you in now that you're one of us?"

Rogue's eyebrows shoot up. Kelly's way too old to manifest, according to every PSA she's ever seen. So then how…

Magneto straightens, turning toward her. "The Senator's fate is now our fate, just as the fate of every human will soon become our fate. This is the future. However." Magneto steps aside to give her clear access to the gaping hole in the rock face. "For past transgressions, his life is in your hands."

Hesitantly, Rogue takes Magneto's former position. Kelly's sweat-slicken face is tilted toward her, blind terror in his eyes. Hundreds of feet below him, waves beat against the shore. She reaches down to grasp his wrist carefully. Her glove does a little to absorb the wetness of his skin but he still almost slips, his wrist stretching bonelessly. Before he plummets, she reaches out with her other hand and drags him through the window by his collar.

He lands on the floor with a sickening squish. The effort to get to his knees proves insurmountable, and he flops down at her feet. She waits for Carol's righteous anger to sweep away the pity Rogue feels for him.

Motioning cordially, like he's hosting a campaign fundraiser, Magneto says, "Senator Kelly, I would like you to meet Rogue. Rogue is a former beneficiary of the excellent patient care you yourself pushed to the top of the agenda at Southaven Mutant Treatment Clinic. Rogue, meet the Senator. I'm not mistaken in believing you have a mutual friend." Smile gone mocking, he clarifies, "Captain Carol Danvers."

Kelly turns his cheek to the side to look up at her through his arms. His eyes, drawn at first in wary confusion, search her face. When recognition hits, his stare falls accusingly on her gloves. "You're the mutant who killed her."

Rogue flinches, but her body leans forward. "How dare you, of all people? You're ignorant," she replies, her accent lilting high.

Carol lets go hastily. _Forgive me._

"Come now, there's no cause to be melodramatic," Magneto intervenes. "No one is ignorant in this room, unless deliberately so. Senator, you have seen the security tape just as well as I. We can agree on 'euthanasia' rather than murder, can we not?"

A generous relabeling. Carol's hand may have reached out to touch, but it was Rogue's monster who tasted her weak will to live and drank her in completely.

Rogue falls hard on her knees, bringing her palms down smack on the floor. "What did you do to her?"

Kelly acts like he didn't hear. His focus is on the hairline cracks in the rock forming around her spread fingers. She presses down harder, her hands sinking like they would in wet cement.

He raises his rubbery face. "I-I didn't do anything."

Rogue feels her left elbow being lifted. She jerks her attention to Magneto, who stands above her. "You won't get the vindication you seek that way, my dear child." He pinches the seam over her middle finger, drawing her glove off. The skin of her hand is tingling. Reaching out. Magneto maneuvers her arm closer to Kelly, then steps away.

So obvious, he's manipulating her. He wants her to touch Kelly; maybe that was the plan from the start. Maybe he needs to know something – But why not just get a telepath, then, or any other of the innumerable mutations that would meet the same end? And why tell her he has Carol's file? She knows she can get the hard facts another way.

Only, she wants more than facts.

"No – no!" Kelly recoils from Rogue's bare hand.

It's been a long time since she was an object of abject horror. She doesn't like it, Carol doesn't like it. Logan hates it.

Rogue twists around, lunging for Magneto, hoping to knock him down. The chain of Carol's dog tag stops her short. The garrote wrenches her back onto Kelly's body, which absorbs her impact like a waterbed. Rocked by buoyancy and impelled by Magneto, the side of her face makes awkward but solid contact with the wet, salty skin on the back of Kelly's neck.

She pushes against his body, the pull of her mutation, and waves of nausea. Breaking away, she skitters onto her hands and knees. Her forehead bounces and ripples with the contact against the ground. Fluids leak out through her pores to puddle around her body.

_Oh, God. Oh, God. No, please – _

Magneto's hand hovers near her shoulder. "Don't fight it."

The light. She can feel the way it seeped into Robert's bones. The whisper, Magneto's damning whisper – "Welcome to the future, brother." He's been poisoned. He needs a hospital – _They'll know. They'll all know what I am. Oh, God. Mark._ Mark, who stood by him through the divorce, only because he believes in the cause and the threat – He won't understand. His own son will disown him. _Mark._ The only person in the world who loves him. _I'm infected. Oh, God._

With all of Robert's terror, fear, and prejudice surging through her, she glares at Magneto. He stands, shaking his head in disappointment. "I had hoped you would be a believer."

Clear vomit trickles out of Rogue's mouth. Fury turns to incredulity. "Believe in what? You made – " Suddenly, she has to laugh. It's too ironic and too hopeless not to. "You made us into a d-disease!" Like AIDS. John would get such a kick out of this. "You made them right!"

"You lack perspective."

That's funny, too, because she has nothing but perspective – multiple, conflicting, arguing perspectives. Some in the dark, some in the spotlight. But, oddly enough, the sum of all they have to live for doesn't add up to a whole hell of a lot. Especially not for Robert, who's drawn himself into the fetal position. She's mildly shocked that he's still conscious.

Rogue sits back, her legs twisted abnormally under her. She's almost sobbing now, because she made the wrong choice. If she dies here, no one will find her. The Professor will wish she trusted him. Logan will blame himself.

But maybe she won't die. Magneto is still trying to evangelize her: "Look into the distinguished Senator's thoughts, Rogue, and tell me he would not have exterminated us."

The fine print of Project Wideawake. _It may come to that. It's a war._ Does Magneto want to subvert it? Or does he just want to win?

Rogue find she doesn't care one way or the other. Disgusted by his hypocrisy and his gentility, she draws her lip into a snarl worthy of Logan. "Go fuck the horse you rode in on."

The syringe hanging on Magneto's belt lifts and sinks into her neck. Grasping it between her fingers, Rogue tips forward.

"Young people," she hears, before seeing dark.


	18. Great Gig in the Sky, chapter 2

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track four / "GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"**

**ASK THE DEAD MAN WALKING**

_A flash of anger plants a "No Trespassing" sign on his thoughts. _

"_I asked you once; it wasn't an invitation to move in."_

– _Logan –_

Icy water trickles down into the collar of his shirt, washing away some of the cold sweat he'd broken out in before he'd been knocked the fuck out of commission. Again. That's twice – three times, if he counts last night – that he's been laid flat right when Marie needed him most. And not five damn minutes after he swore – he fucking swore – to take care of her.

Right. With a body full of metal, he'd been a puppet on strings as far as Magneto was concerned.

Logan splashes more water on his face. The residual tremors that dizzied his brain and shook his joints ever since he'd snapped awake in the train station, half-hovering next to Jean, half-dragged by Cyclops, are mostly gone. Phantom vibrations persist, like he's wearing his whole skeleton wrong.

Another splash and he lifts his head, meeting his own eyes in the mirror for half a second of fierce accusation – that's right, bastard, you let your girl bargain away her freedom for your worthless hide – before flicking his attention to the reflection of Xavier and Storm standing outside the bathroom.

He swipes the back of his neck with a towel, which he throws into the sink. He turns away, pushing down his shirt sleeves and pulling on his denim jacket.

Too pissed off to keep the blame all to himself, Logan directs his glare at Xavier. "You said he wanted me."

"I made a terrible mistake," he replies, leaning forward in his chair. "His helmet is somehow designed to block my telepathy. I couldn't see what he was after until it was too late."

No, not too late. Nowhere close to too late. It would be too late if he was holding onto Marie's lifeless body, and even that wouldn't be the end of it. There would be a world of pain to inflict.

But these people don't think like he does. If they did, they'd have already mounted a response. All that talk about electromagnetic fields interfering with Cerebro and masking Magneto's position is no excuse for sitting on their asses to wait it out. If Magneto's two steps ahead like Jean said he always is, Logan will just have to go cut him off at the knees.

Without a word, he sweeps by Storm, who uncrosses her arms in surprise. "Where are you going?"

Logan pauses in the doorway long enough to slip on his coat. "I'm gonna find her."

"How?" Storm asks.

"The traditional way – look."

Annoyingly enough, she follows him down the stairs. It's nothing he wouldn't expect. She already tried to talk him out of going after Marie once tonight. A real team player.

"Logan, you can't do this alone."

"Who's gonna help me? You? So far you've all done a bang-up job."

Storm herself had been barely conscious as they'd left the wreckage of the train station, tails tucked firmly between their legs and unnoticed by any of the dazed-looking police.

"Then help us. Fight with us."

Jerking around, he sneers, "Fight with you? What, join the team? Be an 'X-Man'? Who the hell do you think you are? You're a mutant. The whole world out there is full of people who hate and fear you, and you're wasting your time tryin' to protect them? I got better things to do."

Logan turns, but he can't leave it at that. These people are delusional. No one gets to be a hero, not in the real world. He may not remember how, but he's sure as shit learned that lesson.

"You know, Magneto's right. There's a war coming. You sure you're on the right side?"

"At least I've chosen a side." Her sanctimony is enough to make him grit his teeth and start walking.

Storm can go ahead and enjoy her pretty little notions of what it means to be on the frontlines, fine. Best he can do is hope she dies with them. As for Logan, he's picked this battle for one reason and one reason only, and it's personal. Beyond that, Magneto can have his war and Xavier can have his dream. Not his problem.

Logan opens the front door and slams shut it behind him.

He smells Jean in the garage before he sees her standing next to the open passenger side of a Porsche four-door. She's outfitted like she's prepped to take a jog, navy jacket zipped up to the X-insignia on her left breast. Her scent is…Something's off there, but it could be the gasoline and the oil.

Spotting Cyclops's Harley to the left, he starts toward it. "Sorry, Red. I'll take you out some other night."

"Logan, be serious."

Over his shoulder, he fixes her with an impatient scowl.

Jean presses her long fingers together. "Charles never had any intention of sitting back and waiting. The UN Summit is tomorrow night. We all want Rogue safe, but we need information."

"I'll get it easier alone." Spheres of influence, she said before, which means there'll be people in the city who know where Magneto likes to hide.

"Telepathy is easy. Intimidation at claw-point is self-gratifying."

Logan swings his leg over the side of the bike and grips the key left in the ignition. That was a cheap shot, but it doesn't make it any less true. "Shouldn't you be tending the scout leader?"

"Scott's resting. You're the one who needs my help. Instead of squandering precious time, let me lead you directly to a known source. Vanisher. He's an hour away, in lockup at Hiram prison. He's our best chance of finding out where Rogue is or, at the very least, what Magneto intends to do with her. You're not doing her any favors going off on your own."

Goddamn it all to fucking hell.

He eyes Jean for a minute before getting off the bike. The woman knows how to make a point, he'll give her that.

"I assume you want to drive." She tosses the key to him.

What a diplomat.

Coming around the side of the car, Logan gripes, "So, you want me to break you into prison. How does Daddy Warbucks feel about one of his orphans turning criminal?"

"Charles knows what's at stake. And, with any luck, no one will even know we were there."

Logan snorts, his hand on the driver's side door. "Yeah? What do you expect to do, Jeanie? Waltz right on through the front door?"

A grinning head pops right on through the car's hardtop. "Good plan," Kitty mewls. "Gee, Dr. Grey. Don't you wish you'd thought of it first?"

This better be somebody's idea of an elaborate setup for a well-worn punch line.

Jean doesn't look like she's joking. "Kitty is our way in."

"I thought I was the way in." Slice and dice, quiet if he can. Risky but manageable.

"No, you're the worst case scenario." Jean slips into the passenger seat. "We should go."

"Little girl stays here," he says to Jean before raising his hard look to Kitty.

Torso all the way out of the car, she's leaning her elbows against the roof and rolling her eyes. "The 'little girl' is six months older than Rogue."

Inwardly, Logan cringes. This one looks twelve.

"Kitty is eighteen," Jean clarifies, sounding a little sheepish to be hiding behind that thin moral line.

"That's right, totally legal adult here with an amazing gift and a future locker with her name on it in the not-so-secret lower levels."

He was a little off, earlier. Xavier doesn't have it in him to brainwash kids into soldiers, true, but evangelizing them into X-Men isn't as different as the old man probably likes to think.

"Besides all that," Kitty huffs, "Rogue is my potential future BFF, so I'm going to do everything in my mutant power to help her." Emphatically, she adds, "Gender and age discrimination not withstanding." She slips through the roof and into her seat.

What on this godforsaken earth had Logan done to deserve the utter aggravation of this moment? He'd felt so vindicated storming out like he had, singular purpose in mind. One conversation later, he's at the beck and call of a know-it-all kid and a wannabe politician.

A short blast of the car's horn has him shoving himself behind the wheel of the Porsche as Kitty sits back. If he closed the door any harder it would have bounced off its hinges.

When he turns the key, the panel in the center lights up.

"GPS," Jean says. "Find Hiram prison."

Had the thing replied, Logan might have put his fist through it. Lucky for his temper it draws a red line on a map and leaves it at that. Jean angles it toward him.

Logan glances at the girl messing with earphones in the rearview mirror. Most people aren't cut out for dangerous possibilities. Kitty is definitely most people. "Seatbelt," he grunts, putting the Porsche into gear and starting out of the garage.

Kitty keeps her eyes on the glowing device in her hands. "I totally dug the _Annie_ reference – Professor X is both loaded and bald, and Dr. Grey has red hair – nice one, I'm with you. But, seriously, you expect me to believe you give a hoot about the rules of the road? You're not buckling up."

No one's ever accused him of practicing what he preached. "Suit yourself," he replies, digging out another cigar from his coat pocket. "But if you go flyin' through the windshield, try not to break the glass before you break your neck."

Letting out a tinkering laugh, she buckles herself in. "Well, fine, if you're that down on your own driving…"

Cigar between his teeth, Logan lights the tip. Kitty, head bopping along, looks out at the scenery. Jean looks at Logan.

"Could you roll down your window if you're going to smoke, please? I have allergies."

About ready to tell her to hold her breath, Jean's smile shuts his mouth. He hits the button and throws the whole cigar out on the pavement. Her perfectly sized, blindingly white teeth glimmer even brighter in the moonlight.

The things men do for women. Enough to make him sick.

Silence falls heavily around his shoulders. Jean's making no secret of the fact that she wants to say something, but she's evidently waiting for permission. She wants to talk about Marie, no doubt, so she can keep on waiting.

Wouldn't take a psychic to know that he's anxious, but he's not about to explain what's really unseating his stomach – the probability that Marie's reckless choice of answers to her past over Xavier's rescue attempt had something to do with the part of Logan she can feel inside her head.

What's he doing up there, anyway? Logan sees a version of himself snarling, pacing behind locked bars. Putting Marie on edge, making her lash out, telling her to run. What's he showing her? Everything? Shit he can't remember, either because it's lost or it's blended together into the usual pattern he falls into when the effort to act civilized isn't worth the company: fight, fuck, flee. Might be wrong, but he does it well. Not that he's proud of himself. He's…Does she know what? Does she know more? Stripped of all pretenses, all semblances – The beast in the cage, is he in her head now, too?

Under his tight grip, the wheel guides his hands steadily to the right. "You can stop that." He'd been hugging the line, but he wasn't about to drift into the next lane.

"Something of a reflex," Jean explains. "You're…busy."

A flash of anger plants a "No Trespassing" sign on his thoughts. "I asked you once; it wasn't an invitation to move in."

"I know, and I apologize. I can't quite help it at the moment."

He glances over at her. Her head is tilted against the back of the seat, exposing the long line of her throat. She takes in measured breaths. That odd scent lingers.

"I don't read minds on purpose or very often. I really shouldn't be starting with yours." The corner of her mouth ticks. "That's Charles' opinion on the matter."

When she meets his eyes, he sees that her irises have all but disappeared.

Logan reaches over to close his hand over hers, trapping her fingers. Her heart rate, already thumping like a jackrabbit's, jumps. He turns her arm over, cocking an eyebrow at the butterfly bandage on the inside of her elbow. The scent is stronger. Iodine and another chemical.

"What's his opinion on that?" Logan wants to know, letting go and pointing his eyes back on the road.

"It's nothing. It's a low-level stimulant that acts as an enhancer to mutant powers. Hank and I are developing the prototype."

"And he's using you as a guinea pig. Sounds real smart."

"We're both testing the formula. I'll grant you it's not ideal scientifically, but it's the ethical way to do it. Most scientists who seriously study this sort of thing agree that mutations must go beyond the X-gene. In science-fiction they like to say that ninety percent of the human brain is uncharted ability, but, frankly, that's nonsense. In fact…"

She's sliding into doctor mode again, but the consummate professional routine wouldn't fool anyone with eyes. There's a nails-down-his-back kind of woman in there, begging to be let out. He can spot the type at thirty paces, get them into compromising positions in under thirty minutes. Once in a while, he'll meet a woman who'll fake hard-to-get but the charade never quite does it for him. The good doctor and her cool demeanor, well, he decides that's genuine. He likes it as a novelty.

Even if – glancing at the little girl in the backseat, he hates himself for the qualifier – it lacks the flushed charge of single-minded pursuit. Of looking up from a hammer and nail to find that he's got the full attention of dewy brown eyes close-set on a face that never quite settles on bashful or brash, too young or old enough. He's been an object of lust-fueled spectacle far back as he can remember, but that mixture of curiosity and hope and gratitude is something else. Glass-spun sugar again, because he knew even then that eventually he'd handle her too rough and lose the only sweet thing that had ever wanted a part in his life.

Logan takes a sharp corner, his eyes darting to Jean to make sure she's still caught up in her dissertation.

"…And that's why we think that mutation affects the brain itself. Moira is studying brainwaves – action potentials traveling in reverse directions, that sort of thing – but Hank thinks it's more primal than that. The amygdala," Jean says, like she's tasting the word. "Of course, his critics say that would mean that mutations are some kind of autism, which is a little premature since there's yet to be an established link between autism and the amygdala…"

Logan tries to stop tuning her out. The fact that she thinks he's the type of guy who'd actually pay attention to any of this genetic biology shit rather than on who he'd prefer underneath him and why is offering a hell of a lot more credit than he deserves. He wants to earn it.

When Jean finally winds herself down, Logan takes all the technical jargon and condenses into one succinct explanation: "Steroids."

"Control," she counters. "If the amygdala is really the key, then strengthening it might lead to an end of unconscious or reflexive use of power."

"So it's personal."

Jean places a hand over her thighs and tiny specks of lint lift away from her tight pants. "I think a lot of women have romantic notions of what it means to look into the eyes of the men they love. But it wouldn't just be for Scott," she's quick to clarify. "I'm sure Rogue, for instance, would be grateful for the possibility."

First in line. Anything to keep her so-called monster from winning.

Logan considers the road ahead. "She wanted to come back. She wanted help."

"Charles believes in second chances. And third and fourth chances. When we find Rogue, she's more than welcome to return."

"You'll help her," he says, meaning Jean specifically. Meaning extra attention, special care.

Jean waits until he meets her gaze, then she nods. "I can do that."

It isn't so much a load off his shoulders as it is a part of the deal. Nothing he alone can do for Marie is enough to satisfy his promise. So he'll make it his job to see to it that she has the best of everything, even if that means sharing the task.

"I made a lot of excuses earlier," Jean says carefully. "But you were right. We should have done more about Southaven. We could have saved her a lot of pain, and we wouldn't be in this position now."

"We'll get her back." When in doubt, Logan always chooses certainty.

* * *

The GPS shows an underpass half a mile from the edge of the triangular prison. Headlights off, Logan pulls in and parks alongside a turned-over dumpster.

Kitty uncurls herself from her position against the window and stretches hugely. "We're here already? Coolio."

Ten minutes from breaking into a maximum security complex specifically designed to house mutants and she's yawning like they're about to visit grandma in the nursing home. Great.

The hike through the woods to the edge of the outermost fence is an easy one, though Logan could stand for thicker coverage and a darker night. Approaching the twenty-foot barbed wire, he can feel the electric current surging through the metal. Spotlights mounted on towers swirl across the grounds in irregular patterns, and he can smell a platoon's worth of guards trolling around inside.

"She gonna make us invisible while she's at it?" he asks Jean pointedly.

"The reason security looks so tight is because mutants have successfully broken in from the outside," Jean replies. "They're keeping it out of the media, but it's enough of a concern that the government is considering turning over the prison to military control."

"Sounds like the beginning of a nice little police state."

"An alternative is to hire and train mutant guards. Naturally out of the question."

"Right?" Kitty sticks a hand directly through the fence to test it. "Heaven forbid anyone encourage us to use our gifts in productive ways that actually, you know, benefit society as a whole."

Logan rolls his shoulders to loosen up. "We stand around here any longer, they'll be laying down the red carpet and leading us in at gun point."

"Then let's get ready to make a run for it." Kitty shrugs, taking a hold of Jean's hand and waggling her fingers at Logan.

He grimaces, making no move to take her hand. This is the best they can come up with? Fuck's sake.

Drawing a breath, Jean stretches out her free arm. A hundred meters away, the lights on top of the far towers blow their fuses.

Counting the steroids, hard to tell if that's supposed to be impressive.

Sirens kick up, making Logan grit his teeth. Black outlines steadily converge on the other side of the complex.

Blinking, Jean says, "Anything out of the ordinary, and the guards have to immediately respond as if there's a mutant attack. But the lockdown system is so intricate and there are so many false alarms a day, they've gotten careless." Off his eyebrow, she admits, "Once it became clear that the FBI wasn't going to let any of our allies talk to Vanisher, we started developing strategies to see him ourselves."

These people are up to their asses in quicksand, surrounded by enemies on all sides.

"Coast is clear!" Kitty stage whispers, launching herself through the fence and dragging Jean along. Logan catches Jean's wrist at the last possible second and pushes through with her.

Jogging, he fixes his grip and takes the lead as they go through the second layer of fencing. He tugs Jean closer behind him, forcing Kitty to redouble her efforts. Logan points a set of claws straight ahead. If there are guards on the other side of the wall they're running straight into, Logan's not about to give them time to get over the surprise.

The bunk beds he passes through tell him this is a cell. One man who might as well be three is the only person inside, his girth perched on a tiny toilet seat.

"Don't mind us," Logan says over the alarm, retracting his claws and elbowing him in the face. The sumo wrestler goes skeletal in the blink of an eye. He slumps back against the wall.

"Ew," Kitty puts in breathlessly. She faces the other direction, fingers clamped tightly on her nose.

"That wasn't strictly called for," Jean says, shooting the diet guru an empathetic look.

Guy's a convict about to take a dump. Plenty called for. No time to make a point out of it – the alarm cuts off, flashing lights with it.

"Now what?" Logan demands.

Jean pulls up her cuff to check her watch. "We have less than five minutes before the sweep makes it back to this side of the prison. The highest-level prisoners are kept underground, and the most valuable right in the center. Vanisher has two guards stationed outside his door at all times. The alarm system automatically seals the cell from any outside entry until the all-clear is issued."

So they'll drop down through the ceiling. It's a lot to admit, but the girl's plenty useful. He motions at her to get a move on.

Kitty groans slightly as she complies. "Can we not sprint this time? Short legs!" she hisses.

"You don't wanna run, hope the guards really do have their heads up their asses," he tells her.

Dipping her shoulders in and out of the bars, she reports, "Coast looks clear. Let's take it stealth-like, okey doke? I did put on dark clothes for a reason," she says, tugging on her long-sleeved shirt. The front has silver glitter kittens glued on, with "Meow," written in script all over it. "I work best in shadow." She gives him half-ironic jazz fingers. "Shadowcat."

"Yeah," he intones. "You're a regular black op."

Logan grabs her by they elbow before she can even think to salute him sarcastically – it's what Marie would've done, were she part of this little adventure – and impels Jean through the bars with one hand partly on her back but mostly on her ass.

Catcalls start up the moment they pass by the first cell – "Ooh, I like a redhead"; "You into sharin', big guy?"; "Baby child, come over here. I'll split ya in half." That last one earns the piece of shit a flash of claws and telekinetic bitch slap from Jean.

The block erupts in laughter.

"Easy now, easy now," lean, tough-looking guy a few cells ahead says. "You lookin' for some particular mutant or you come to gawk at all the freaks in cages? There ain't a lot of us in here – hell, there ain't a lot of us anywhere – but tickets still ain't free."

Guy sounds like he's got some authority, so Logan side-arms the rest of his cigars at him as they clip past.

"Go on 'bout your business," he replies, and the other mutants grumble themselves into silence.

Jean motions for them to stop at the end of the row, where a thick, steel door contains the cellblock. She pats her pockets carefully, choosing the right to unzip. She produces a smoke bomb and points the long wick toward him. "I don't know what happened to the lighter I had."

He smirks a little as he takes out a book of matches. "Kid nicked it." He's striking the match when he realizes that "kid" means nothing to Jean. Unlike him, she's got a lot more than one to look out for. "Rogue."

"Well, we'll just have to go over the rules with her as soon as she's back at school." Jean carefully hands the burning stick to Kitty, who takes it like it has two heads.

Logan snorts at the idea of anyone telling Marie what to do, especially now that she's got him in her head. "Lots of luck." To Kitty he says, "You got about three seconds. Three, two – "

"Gah!" Eyes closed, Kitty cocks her elbow awkwardly and chucks the smoke bomb, her arm sailing through the metal. Apparently knowing she's the dictionary definition of "throws like a girl," she turns bright pink. "I watch baseball. I don't so much play."

The alarm starts his assault on his ears again, accompanied by the sound of gunfire behind the seal.

Firmly taking a hold of Kitty's shoulder, Logan thrusts his head toward the wall. The dent his forehead leaves against the steel seems to wobble when he stumbles a step back. Fucking hell.

"Um, hello! Ask me first!" Kitty hisses, grabbing on to his arm.

Before he can shrug her off, Jean's weakly grabbed a hold of his other one. Her eyes are closed, her expression strained.

From behind the barrier, metal drops heavily on the ground to a chorus of surprised grunts and protests. So that's what Jean meant when she said the guards would never know they were there. She's pinning it on Magneto.

"Now?" Kitty asks.

At Jean's nod, they take off. Through the steel, through the smoke. He can't see anything beyond the gray and the sting, but he follows the sound of heavy boots treading remarkably lightly on the stairs to the northeast and west. The precision is nothing like the fumbling of the guards outside.

Reeks of military.

Lip drawn into a snarl, Logan almost has his fist clenched tight enough to pop claw when the floor drops out from under him. His stomach mid-flip, his left foot catches the top of a table full of medical supplies. The impact sends both it and him crashing to the floor with excessively loud clangs.

His nose is pressed to concrete when Jean's toes touch down feather light beside his face. She hastens over to the jimmy-rigged hospital bed as Logan rolls over on his back. Laces dangle from a pair of size six sneakers the way Kitty dangles from the ceiling.

She looks down her pert nose at him, wincing. "Uh…Oops?"

Logan gets to his feet with a grunt. "Get down from there before you start lookin' even more like a piñata."

"Are you going to catch me?"

The crackle of a communicator and the clicking sound of technology biting them in the ass sets off Logan's claws.

"I said I was sorry, jee – Ah!" Kitty drops, yowling.

Logan breaks her fall on his back, steadying her with one hand, claws of the other trained on the thick, metal door. "We got gate crashers, Jeanie."

"Dr. Grey, my fingers – " Kitty is tense and gasping. No scent of blood, at least.

He shakes her a little so she doesn't pass out on him, looking back to see Jean with her head down, all her concentration on the mind she has cradled between her palms.

"Jean. Door. Soldiers. Worse case scenario. How much time you need me to buy? Jean!"

"Quiet!"

The panel on the side of the door erupts into sparks, crashing the alarm into dead silence. Movement on the other side of the door pauses. Kitty sucks in her whimpers.

Jean's unsteady breathing is the loudest noise in the whole damn prison. She blinks rapidly. Steadies herself. "I need to concentrate. Five minutes. Watch the door and take care of Kitty." She closes her eyes and makes a face like she's jumping off a hundred-foot diving board into a glass of water.

Footsteps back away. A small explosion, and debris flies. The door holds tight against it. The rest of the prison might be an exercise in futility, but it certainly looks like the man in charge has spared no expense on this room.

Still listening intently to the soldiers outside, Logan eases Kitty onto the floor. She pulls up her knees to cradle her face but sticks out her hand dutifully. Ah, Christ – he holds her wrist in his palm, eyeing the splintered bones tenting the skin of her middle and ring fingers. The clearness of the tread-marked bruise points to an intentional asshole show of force rather than an accidental stomping.

Logan looks around the scattered medical supplies for a splint or something, but, what the hell, it's not like he knows anything about the fixing side of broken bones. He pats Kitty's wrist a couple times. In place of, "There, there," he says, "You should've pulled the fucker down with me. I'd have shoved his leg bone out through his boot for you."

Kitty lifts her revolted face. So not all teenagers take comfort in violent, black humor. That would've at least gotten a snort out of Marie. But Kitty just chokes once more on a hiccup-sob, big, fat tears dripping from her chin.

He doesn't blame her any more than he can help her. It's that last part he can't stand. "You make an awful lot of noise for a mouse," Logan grouses.

For half a second, she looks hurt. Then her mouth pinches. She takes a deep breath and rises to the occasion, "Phys-physiognomy is, seriously, a completely debunked pseudo-science. And not at all politically correct, given that mutations often take on a, like, physical manifestation. Take yourself for a perfect case in point. Your hair actually tufts. If you were stockier, that plus the claws would – "

The god-awful screeching sound of metal on metal makes Kitty and Logan cringe. He helps her to her feet so they can stand by Jean, who's jolted out of her trance.

"He tell you where Marie is?"

"Telford is barely in there," Jean tells him gravely, face ticking. "Magneto signed his death warrant and the prison doctors buried him alive. I can't help him. We have to get him back to Charles."

"This was supposed to be an interrogation, not a damn rescue mission."

Deftly, Jean unplugs Vanisher from the machines strapping him to the bed. "It was always a rescue mission. I just thought he'd be conscious. Take this. I want to analyze it later." She hands off a bag of clear fluid dangling a detached IV. "Kitty, how're you doing sweetheart?"

"Fine. I'm earning that locker, Dr. Grey."

"Yes you are."

The screeching noise stops abruptly. Five thin blades of uneven length saw through the door's seal. Five more start slicing through the bottom. Logan shoves the IV bag into his inside jacket pocket and lets go of Kitty, intending to confront whatever the hell is on the other side of that door direct.

"Logan, no. We're leaving. Take him, please."

The military setup of the prison and Vanisher's doctors makes Logan want to stay and figure this shit out.

"I could see what Magneto's base looks like, but the Professor will be able to get Telford to remember where it is."

Jean wouldn't be much of a mind reader if she didn't always know the right thing to say.

Vanisher is nothing but skin and bones. Logan lifts him easily. Kitty presses against him and clutches Vanisher's arm with her good hand. Jean places her palms flush against his ears.

"You sure about this?"

She smiles grimly. "No. He's a long-distance teleport. There's a good chance we could end up on a beach Fiji, because that's where I'd really rather be right now."

"Get me Rogue back, and I'll take you bikini shoppin'."

Jean closes her eyes. Vanisher opens his.

Logan's stomach is yanked over his nose, and then he's kneeling in the dimly lit foyer of the mansion. Kitty is shuddering beside him, while Jean is sprawled out on the wooden floor. She's breathing like a horse after a race, mouth open wide. The band-aid over her vein reminds him that the power boost worked after all.

"Dr. Grey!" Kitty yelps. She sits back on her heels, crying out, "Professor! Ms. Munroe! Mr. Summers!"

An alarmed horde of kids scurry out from the TV lounge, talking over each other. All-American wraps his arm around Kitty and asks about Marie.

Logan, remembering what she said about "a nice boy" telling her to hit the road, glares blades at him as he stands. "Where the hell is Xavier?"

A big guy steps forward looking like Joe Montana in a sea of flag footballers. "They're all down in medical."

"Rumor is there's something really wrong with the Professor," the gum-snapper elaborates.

Pyro says from the side, "Hey Wolverine, shouldn't that mutant terrorist you're holding like your girl be in lock up at Hiram?"

Ignoring him, Logan thrusts Vanisher up toward the big guy. "Take him." He picks Jean up and heads toward the elevator. "Follow me. Mouse, ditch the boyfriend."

"She's about to pass out!"

Logan gets in the elevator. "Hurry up," he relents.

The six of them make a ridiculous picture when they come into the med lab, breaking Cyclops and Storm's silent vigil over the prone, unconscious Professor.

"What's all this?" the image of Dr. MacTaggart asks from a computer. Dr. McCoy shares the split-screen with her.

Letting go of Storm, Cyclops rushes over to snatch his one and only away from Logan. He mummers her name, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Why do you do this to yourself?" Her eyes start to flutter.

Logan starts forward to help get her on the other table. "I think she's – "

Cyclops stops him cold. "No one gives a damn what you think."

Crossing his empty arms over his chest, Logan scowls at the room at large while the others set up help for Jean, Vanisher, and Kitty under McCoy and MacTaggart's instructions. It's all thirty milligrams IV push of that or fifty of this, vital signs are weak or breathing is normal. Storm hands Kitty a few pain killers and a glass of water, and Bobby holds her hand as the drugs work through her system.

"Peter, how is Mr. Porter's heart rate now?" McCoy wants to know.

Big guy looks at the monitor uncertainly. "Uh…no change. Or maybe slower?"

Jean groggily struggles to get Cyclops to let her sit up. "Scott, I need to try reading his mind again."

"No way. You pumped three times the maximum dosage of that drug into yourself, now you're crashing. Take it easy or you'll wind up with an aneurysm. Hank, tell her."

"I'm afraid he's right, Jean. Not to mention…As you see, Mr. Porter is barely holding onto his life. Another invasion of his mind will surely kill him. We will make do with what you have already learned."

"I don't know – My head…"

"This is a disaster," Cyclops pronounces lowly, wringing Jean's hand. "You and Kitty hurt, Charles in a coma, Cerebro sabotaged, our only lead near dead – We agreed before that Hiram Prison wasn't an option. We voted."

"Scott, all of this is bigger and more important than your principles."

"You slipped me a sedative . Damn it, what can't you justify?"

"Charles never should have let you go behind our backs," Storm agrees, laying a gentle hand on the Professor's bald head. "Endangering a student, of all things…"

"All right, Oro," Jean says in a tone of wounded friendship. "Two against one, I'm wrong again. I apologize."

"That isn't the point." Cyclops finally helps Jean sit up and buries his face in her neck. "God, you make me so crazy sometimes."

The tender relief on Jean's face makes her more beautiful than Logan's ever seen her.

He opens his mouth with an audible jaw crack. "Enough with this bullshit. Jesus Christ. So what, Xavier sent Jean out to get her hands dirty and you all got your panties in a bunch because she came home to a mess. Stop flinging shit at each other, and start focusing. Magneto has Rogue. Why?"

Everyone stares at him like he caught them with their fingers stuck up their assholes.

Then Jean says, "Telford Porter wasn't born a mutant. Magneto has built a machine," and they begin to piece it all together.


	19. Great Gig in the Sky, chapter 3

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track four / "GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"**

**THERE'S NO GIVING UP THE GHOST**

"_Fear doesn't make wrong into right._

_How you stop yourself from falling matters."_

– _Rogue –_

Rogue isn't falling, she's sinking. No air down there, her brain yells. Push up, push up. Something hard hits against her. She tries to flail. She twitches. She screams, but nothing comes out. The fog only gets thicker.

A heavier something drops on her spine, causing her upper body to jerk and lift. Rogue uses the momentum to roll herself onto her side. Her sputtering coughs turn into deep hacking. To steady herself, she puts her hand on the uneven rock. Water from the puddle she almost drown in splashes over her wrist.

With the sleeve of her cloak, she wipes her face. In the dim artificial light, she can see that Senator Kelly is semi-propped up against the now-sealed wall. In his hand is a palm-sized piece of debris. She glares at it, and he lets it fall to the ground.

Gasping faintly, Kelly explains, "Y-you weren't waking up."

She notes the fact that he saved her life cynically, knowing it's meant to be reviewed later. Undoubtedly, he will ask her to return the favor. For now, she tries to find a comfortable way to sit without toppling backward. Whatever was in that syringe is still in her system.

"Are you hungry? There's food by the door. It's lunchtime." He cradles his watch. "Twelve on the dot. That zoo animal comes about every hour and a half to check on us." He holds his watch's gold face toward her, even though she's too far away to read it. "Waterproof." His laugh is sharp.

"It was a gift from your son," Rogue remarks. It comes out mild, though she meant it to be nasty. She meant to remind him of what he was then and what is now.

He touches the engraved band. "Yes, from Mark. You're right."

"I know everything about you, Robert. Your darkest secrets are all up here with me." She presses a finger to her temple. Her bones are solid again.

Kelly is more rubbery than he was last night. Even his smallest movements cause water to spurt from his pores.

"The truth about me is bound to be more flattering than whatever it is you people think. I've never drank the tears of mutant babies. Then again, my detractors would say that's only because no one's offered me a taste." He wheezes at his own joke, then cuts himself off to catch his breath.

To avoid Kelly's external and internal presence, Rogue cranes her head around the room for inspiration for escape. They're sealed in completely. No cracks.

"Anyway, he already told me how you take from people. I think he wanted me to try to hurt you, so you'd murder me. He's trying to make you like him. I don't think you can be. You're just a scared young woman. I don't think you want to be a mutant any more than I do."

"Don't compare yourself to me," she snaps. The more he gets to talk, the more he comes bubbling to the surface. She needs to put him down, shut him up. "You're a bigoted, egotistical opportunist hypocrite. You threw away your 'family values' for a string of barely legal mistresses who held your hand and walked your pathetic mommy issues all the way to the bank. And you got down on your knees and you begged Nora not to leave you, but this time she had somebody else. She really did love you. Now she hates you. You use people – "

"And I do it without conscience, because I expect them to love me. I demand it, even though I'm too selfish to love them back. Young lady, those words you're trying to use against me are things I've told myself again and again. I'm in therapy." Long trails of spit drip from his lips as he chuckles mirthlessly. "Mutants should know better than anybody, you can't help the way you're born."

"That's lazy."

"I know that."

"No you don't. You think what you do in public is so important it shouldn't matter what you do in private. What is it you tell people? That stupid metaphor."

"It's true. I was. I was the hammer, not the blacksmith. The vast majority of American citizens do not have mutant powers. But even greater numbers won't be able to stand up to mutant aggression without the legislative force to back them up. They needed me to serve their best interests. Every villain is a hero to someone else. And vise-versa."

"So then Magneto is your big, bad villain, but how is he any different from you? He turned you into a mutant and now you're sick. You want me to feel sorry for you, and I do. But that doesn't change the fact that you support places like Southaven. You want to turn mutants normal no matter who gets hurt."

"Don't you want help?" His head, resting against the wall, bends with the curve of the rock. His eyes take in Rogue disbelievingly. "You're so young. You're going to spend the rest of your life covered up like that. Seventy, eighty years. How are you going to stand it? People deprived of physical contact eventually go insane."

Rogue blinks against the sting. "You're just saying that because you blame your mother's postpartum depression for the way you are. But you saw. She couldn't bring herself to hold your brother, either, and he turned out fine."

Kelly closes his eyes at that. "They've done studies. You'll go nuts if you don't get help. You're like a cancer victim who bombs medical laboratories because animal testing is cruel."

"I wasn't a patient at Southaven. I was the test chimp."

"I'm not a doctor. I don't know what or why they did whatever it is that they did to you. But, you know, one chimp can end up saving a lot of lives."

"So no one cares that a hundred people – human beings – end up brain damaged."

"What happened to Carol Danvers was a surgical risk. The best, most cutting-edge research points to the amygdala being the seat of mutant powers. The procedure could have worked."

"The doctors told you maybe, but it was best to wait year. You threatened funding."

"And that makes me a monster. The American people cannot wait for hope. What do you think this country will look like in a year? Tensions are only getting worse – "

"You provoked them!"

"Terrorist attacks, young lady. Murders. Kidnappings. Robberies. Mutant gangs are practically running Los Angeles. Mutants laugh in the face of rule of law, and why shouldn't they? Bleeding hearts keep us unprotected, because they don't want to see the threat. It's not nice. They'd rather believe every mutant is a Jean Grey or a Hank McCoy. But even they have their secrets. They'll lose control eventually. Who will trust them then?"

Kelly is stopped by his own panting and coughing. Misery dulls his fever bright eyes.

"Yeah. The thought of the 'freaks-in-suits' failing doesn't make you so gleeful anymore. People like Jean Grey are willing to fight people like Magneto. They do it on behalf of people who hate them and people like you. I mean the way you are now. You've been a mutant almost a whole day. You don't want world domination. You just want your family back."

"I want more than that. I tried to turn a negotiation into a war. If you get me out of here alive, I'll do whatever it takes to fix that. I'll turn in my hammer."

"And be what instead?" Rogue can't exactly picture him a hippie flower stuck in the barrel of some soldier's gun.

"I'll say I was wrong. I'm still a senator. I'll let Hank McCoy build a bridge out of me. Just…use your powers. Get me to a good doctor. Save my life. I'll make it worth it."

She believes him. Of course Kelly would be self-serving enough to switch sides. "You just want to continue to control the debate."

"The sin of control. It's the entire issue, isn't it? Control. Chaos. Some people say there's nothing wrong with mutants, as long as they can be controlled. Other people say, 'Don't hate the mutant, hate the mutation.'"

Kelly runs a hand over his mouth. He's finding it difficult to direct its movement. Everything he's said has been garbled and slow. Rogue gives him time to push the words out only because she's sickened by the thought that any one of them could be the last of a clearly dying man.

"You hate your mutation because you can't control it. You hated Southaven because you couldn't control your treatments. We don't agree with the madman who trapped us here, because he seems to us a lot like chaos. Every person has their limit. It's all just a slippery slope. At what point do you become afraid of falling?"

"Fear doesn't make wrong into right. How you stop yourself from falling matters."

"Imagine it's someone you care about. What then?"

Her hesitation is pure reflex, even though the answer should be irrefutable. "It still matters."

Carol has been remarkably quiet through all of this, probably because Rogue's so hazy. She doesn't intend to leave Kelly behind, so she's glad Carol can't fight her over it.

Rogue closes the discussion by climbing to her feet. It takes a moment to blink away the lights floating in front of her vision. She lurches to the entry and knocks on the flat metal sheet that covers it instead of the prison bars. The metal is thin, and she can't hear anything on the other side. She crosses the cell and knocks on the window covering. It's much thicker, and Rogue isn't feeling all that strong.

"All right. We have to take the inside route. We're going to fly over the dam, and we're going to make it through the tunnels without being seen. Then we'll take the helicopter to Westchester. There's a good doctor there. With secrets."

"You know Jean Grey."

"She doesn't turn people away if they need help." Rogue picks up the damp glove Magneto took off her and puts it back on. To Kelly she says, "Neither do I, I guess. But I don't forgive you."

"I wouldn't even consider it, were I in your position. But what about the machine that did this to me?"

The light was so bright, even the memory makes Rogue squint. She can still feel that light seeping into Kelly's body down to his cells, scrambling his DNA even after Magneto was literally peeled from the machine. The same machine he no doubt intends to put her in.

Bastard sonuvabitch coward, she thinks with a shuddering jolt of adrenaline. It's as close to direct as Logan has spoken to her yet.

"I know I should do something, break it somehow. But we don't have the time." And, honestly, she never wants to have to see the travesty of it in person. "Besides, Magneto didn't have me last time the UN Summit was supposed to happen, and he didn't go through with it then."

Rogue searches for a place to grip the seam where the metal sheet meets rock wall.

"He had Telford Porter as his ace in the hole then. And that blue…" Kelly sputters, landing on, in his mind, the worst possible insult, "…woman – She posed as Henry to convince me how important international opinion is and that Summit had to go on."

"The Summit isn't the issue anymore. Without me to do his dirty work, chances are Magneto will just have to try again with another venue. In the meantime, we can tell anybody who wants to know exactly where to find him."

Finally. Near the bottom right-hand corner she finds a small crack. She drops to her knees to start prying it away by inches.

"Can you be any quieter? It might echo," Kelly cautions unhelpfully. He staggers over to take a look at her work. "From the noise, it sounded like you should have made more progress."

Rogue pauses, the hole now large to stick an arm through. She could tell him that she's doing pretty damn well for just having woke up from over twelve hours of drug-induced sleep. Instead, she chooses a subtle reminder that he's next to useless.

"You're dripping on me," she monotones, and Kelly backs off.

A few more minutes of teeth-clenching, nerve-wracking exertion, and she's confident she can wiggled her shoulders through. Then she remembers she inherited her momma's hips and devotes another minute to filling out the exit.

Rogue stops to listen to the silence outside before poking her head out for a quick scan. No sign of a bridge, meaning no unscheduled visits. So far so good. She wiggles free.

From behind, she hears a gasp for help. Kelly oozed through the hole, and he's too wobbly to get back on his feet. Gingerly, Rogue tries to lend him support with her knee and impetus by pulling up on his collar, but the sight of his neck lulling to the side at an impossible angle almost makes her let go in horror.

"Okay." She mimics his deep breaths. "Let's only do this once. I'm going to put you on my back. You just hold on however you can."

All Kelly can seem to manage is a wheeze. Guilt eats at her. She should have taken time to make sure he wouldn't have to use his jelly monster abilities to get out. Rogue doesn't need to be an MD to see that he's holding himself together through sheer will.

"Do you need to rest?" she asks, trying to sound equally concerned with his well-being as she is about their extremely pressing escape.

"No," he says, wisely not shaking his head. "Go."

With her free hand, Rogue pulls up her hood to protect them both from contact. Then she slowly, carefully dips her shoulders under his chest and lifts him onto her back. God. She could've picked him up without Carol's powers. He's Jell-O inside a leaky hot water bottle.

She starts forward slowly. "Are you all right? Hanging in there? Make a noise, please."

He moans, and Rogue's heart continues to pound. Good for maintaining adrenaline, but bad for giving her the shakes. It's a long way across that gaping divide, and she can't even get her usual running start without losing Kelly off her back.

Deep breath. She stands with her toes on the very edge of the chasm. No problem whatsoever. Carol could do this from day one. Just jump up and don't fall back down. Couldn't be simpler. Rogue bends her knees, pleads with an all-loving higher power she wishes existed, and leaps.

Straight drop for a moment before fear pushes her up. She arcs and slumps, arcs and slumps. Her muscles quiver, her sweat and Kelly's fluids run down her aching spine. Carol is unnervingly still.

Almost there, but Rogue begins to sink faster. If she makes it to the bottom, there might be a way out but it would be way too far from the helicopter with Kelly to worry about. And she's so tired. At the lip of the waterfall, she does one last arc and lands on her feet then her knees. Kelly slides off her back, groaning. His arm flops too hard against the jagged rock.

When she was seven, little Marie leaped from her parents' dresser onto their waterbed. The pop, knowing it was a belt-worthy trespass, was the most horrifying sound she'd heard yet.

Ten years later, on her hands and knees in a mutated villain's lair, that same sound causes Rogue to choke on a gasp and a sob. Her shaking hands go to scoop up the water spraying from the end of Kelly's empty sleeve.

"Mutants – " Senator Robert Kelly's old disgust is back, she can hear it in his raspy voice.

"Don't," she says, desperate for something better for them both.

The wetness from Robert's fingers seeps in through the fabric of her glove. "Mutants are afraid of normal people because they're afraid of themselves. Aren't they?" Off her emphatic nod, Robert sighs. "I banked my career on that. I wanted them to be afraid, like me. Fifty-two years of living in fear."

Afraid of getting to close, afraid of trusting people. Rogue hates him for his confession, because it's a dying man's last grasp at immortality. He's addressing her forehead, the way people who understand the true evil of her mutation inevitably do. He's digging up sympathies, burrowing a home, knowing a part of him will survive to haunt the crevices in her brain until her death do they part.

Robert's voice turns soft and the gentleness he normally reserves for his son settles on his undulating features. "I guess you have one less person to be afraid of."

His chest sinks in. He gurgles on water bubbling up from his lungs to his throat. His right eye remains fixed on her as it slides to the side. The pressure builds against his translucent skin, against the heavy lump between her vocal cords. He bursts and she screams, impossibly cold water raining onto her, dripping from her hood and her nose and her lips.

Rogue screams and shivers, clutches the solidness of her skull as she wobbles to her feet. Sabretooth is barreling toward her. Toad drops down in front of her.

She turns and runs right off the edge of the cliff, her arms and legs pinwheeling against the nothingness of empty space.

* * *

Adrenaline turns her freefall into a slant. She lands heels first and rolls and picks herself up to stagger to the nearest tunnel. A dulled survival instinct keeps her moving through arbitrary twists and turns. The only light she has is from sunrays through the cracks in the rock wall. Rogue thinks she's trudging uphill, but she could just as easily be dragging herself down into hell.

Direction doesn't matter, really, since probably everybody but Sabretooth has anticipated her foolhardy get-to-the-choppa plan. Her urgency died with Kelly. The best she can do at the moment is keep hidden. It occurs to her – more like Logan, hard to tell – to circle back, confuse her scent. The passages are endlessly identical, but there are clues enough if she pays attention. And she does, excessively. All her faculties focused ahead because, from behind and inside, the monsters are out to get her.

A subtle change in temperature alerts Rogue to an opening barely her size. From it, a narrow trickle of water falls onto her sneakers. Nausea makes her step back.

Get it together. When she turned the corner, the ocean moved to her left. Meaning the channel runs further inside the cavern. So then where…

The waterfall. Of course. The one place she was hoping to avoid. Rogue sighs, grits her teeth, and crawls into the widening channel. Her inner Logan would inadvertently lead her to grudging heroics. He so would.

Magneto's master machine of messy mutations and mass murders is hardly more than a blurred outline from her vantage point behind the half-curtain of the waterfall. With supreme effort, Rogue manages to use the curve of the channel's wall to turn herself around. She works out her frustrations with the soles of her shoes as she kicks herself a better view.

Head first again, Rogue looks beyond the rushing water to assess her options. The machine is ludicrously shaped, rendering it difficult to tell where it's most vulnerable. The light comes out of the top, so maybe she can drop a big boulder or something on it and call it a day. Or a suicide attempt, depending on how personally Magneto took that whole "go fuck yourself" thing.

Damn it, why did the machine have to be so out in the open? Giving up the relative safety of her hidey-hole seems less than intelligent. But, then again, hide has always been her go to strategy even when she's been the one on the seek.

Rogue crouches on the lip of the tunnel, looking above and around for something heavy. What she sees is a figure approaching the machine. Gasping in a yelp, she ducks back into the hole. One hand covering her own mouth, after a minute or so she dares a peek.

Whoever it is has moved around to the back of the machine. Metal sings against metal and sabotaging sparks fly out.

Before she even consciously makes the decision, Rogue has leapt onto the flat, metal walkway. She sprints toward the smoking machine, on top of which Logan poses with a satisfied smirk.

"Thought you'd make it down here."

Rogue slows, her common sense breathless at the sight of him at her rescue, so collected and triumphant, so here. So impossibly too good to be true.

"Logan…"

"It's good you're cautious, but we gotta hurry. The X-Men can only keep them distracted so long."

Not exactly a definitive answer. Still, she keeps toward him, as if magnetized. "But how – "

"Ain't always reliable, but Charles' got a secret machine just for telepaths."

Hope bubbles up on recognition. "Right, that's how he tracked Sabretooth to Canada and found us."

Logan squats on the edge of the machine's raised platform. "Bet you wish he hadn't," he says ruefully.

"Bet you're right," Rogue replies, gazing up at his half-smile through her lashes.

The hairs on the back of her goosepimply arms stand on end, though she can't quite say whether it's due to the unease rocking her stomach or the warmth spreading through her chest. Logan has his hand beneath her hood and he's stroking her hair, drawing her closer.

"You okay?" he mummers, not breaking eye contact with her.

"I'll be okay."

Logan's right hand pulls her scarf from under her cloak and holds the thin material across the bottom half of her face. Rogue's pulse rattles her brain. She balances herself against his knees. He adjusts his hold so that one hand is free to caress the back of her neck.

Rogue swallows, not sure how to hold her lips. His are parted and moving forward by inches. Why the hell hadn't he thought of this before? she thinks at the same time as, How could he want to kiss me again after I almost killed him?

Her stomach flips again, and she thinks it's the Logan inside her head. He remembers how kissing the Rogue inevitably ends. He also knows this isn't the time or the place. Survival instinct, both of it.

Mouthing Logan's name to stop him only erases the distance between them. His mouth is hot on the other side of her scarf, but Rogue's suddenly aware of other details, like how the mend she made on his threadbare jeans isn't there and that he's making an awful lot of movement with his free hand.

Against her lips, he says, "What's the matter, baby?"

Rogue punches him right in the wide-open crotch. Logan has not, does not, and will never call her "baby." Gross.

His eyes go yellow as he lets out a wholly feminine noise of pain. Rogue smacks his arm away, and a syringe falls out of his sleeve. But doesn't hit the ground.

Not bothering to look around for Magneto, she jumps straight into flight. She doesn't make it too far before something ropes around her ankle. From his perch an a tree, Toad starts reeling her in by his tongue. She kicks at it viciously until he has to let go. A needle's prick breaks her skin, but she knocks the syringe away before it can administer the full dose.

Caught in a nightmare, Rogue loses more and more control over her body. She's swimming in the air, clawing at it to stay up. Eventually, her eyes roll back. She plummets.

Paralyzed, she drifts in and out. Like when Marie got her wisdom teeth out, she's aware that something awful is happening to her but unable to feel it and therefore unable to care. Rogue isn't locked up, just left to the side. At some point, a boat appears. Later, Mystique kneels painfully on her hair.

The same grin stays on her face as she transforms from herself to Carl the Janitor to the lunch lady to Bobby and back to Logan. When that doesn't get a rise, she turns into Senator Kelly. His fingers brush over Rogue's crown. "It's getting to be quite the graveyard up there," she comments with Kelly's mouth but her own voice.

Rogue tries to spit, but it just ends up dribble on her lips.

Mystique is Mystique again. She grows out her fingernails so she can trace Rogue's skin with them. Rogue shrinks back. Absorbing her wouldn't be a way out, just a new way to get trapped.

Her touch is reverent in its near-recklessness. "So much potential," Mystique muses. She scratches Rogue's cheek hard enough to leave stinging tracks. "Wasted."

Mystique shifts her long, scaled legs and tilts Rogue's head so they're both gazing at Magneto, who loads the boat with his arms out like Jesus on the cross.

"He sees something useful in you."

Rogue works her mouth until she manages, "Flattered."

"Erik pushes me past the limits of what I think I'm capable of. Another mutant told me he would. A blind woman saw me, and she saw you. A version of you." Mystique grips a chunk of Rogue's bangs and lets the dark brown strands fall into her eyes. "But so much more." The serene expression on her face is Mother Mary meets Mary Magdalene.

Blind prophets, messiah complexes, forced martyrdom, and brave new worlds. All of it raises bile in the back of Rogue's throat. "You're both bullshit psychotic. They'll die." She strains her neck and yells again, "They'll die!"

Magneto's voice rings out. "A percentage might not survive their initial mutations, true. Senator Kelly has shown us that genetics are a delicate art. Nevertheless, my machine has worked beautifully in the past. And with any great change, sacrifices must be made." Magneto clucks his tongue and shakes his head. "My dear girl."

Mystique grins that manic grin of hers, and tops up Rogue's sedative.

What feels like a blink, and Rogue is on the boat, her wrists tied up. Magneto looks out at the blurry green outline of the Statue of Liberty.

"Magnificent, isn't she?"

"I've seen it," Rogue slurs. Age thirteen. Family road trip. Dad said flying was cheating, but Momma knew he did it for her because she hates airplanes. He has his moments, as far as husbands go. She married a good man –

No, don't remember. Concentrate.

"I first saw her in 1949. America was going to be the land of tolerance. Of peace."

"Half a century later, you're back. To kill me."

Gravely, he replies, "Yes."

Bitterness twists her mouth. "Why?"

"Because there is no land of tolerance, there is no peace. Not here, not anywhere else. Women and children, whole families destroyed simply because they were born different from those in power."

He kneels in front of her, no longer playing the kindly granddad but the apologetically damning preacher.

"Well after tonight the world's powerful will be just like us. They will return home as brothers. As mutants. Our cause will be theirs. Your sacrifice will mean our survival."

Sabretooth appears at the top of the ladder, startling her.

"I'll understand if that comes as a small consolation," Magneto stands, all superior purpose. "Put her into the machine. I'll raise it."

The wind is cold at the top of the Statue of Liberty, but it brings no sense of clarity. Time is still slipping past when she's not looking.

Her body is weak. Her mind is empty. Her conscience is bursting. They'll die. She'll kill them, because Magneto has manipulated all her choices. He got her through pride at the train station. She thought being carried out unconscious in a sack was an affront to her grownup decisions. At least then she'd now have the privilege of a damsel in distress. Southaven has made her stronger, no doubt, but at the cost of her innocence.

Rogue twists her bound wrist. Left hand, the same one Carol in her desolation grabbed hold of and held tight. Where's that strength you made me take? she wants to know. Rogue rattles her restraints. If I die, you'll never fly again. Not a stir.

Fine, so maybe you all want me dead. But where's the glee? Primo mutie on mutie violence, Eugene, your favorite...Sinners getting what's coming to them, right, Lora?...Good news, David, you'll be free of my monster…Oh, come on. Eight months I've listened to your crap commentary! One of you answer me...Momma, please?

The void in her mind is a gaping black hole, as full as it is empty.

No, you can't. Don't leave me all alone now. Say something! Somebody.

Silence.

Tears drip pitifully from her chin. "Help." She pushes the plea out onto a world that doesn't care.

A world she's not done a thing to endear herself to. "I don't owe you nothin'," Logan said, all those weeks ago.

But he saved her life anyway, and she saved his. I like you, she told Logan the second day they met, meaning it whether he deserved it or not. Just yesterday, he told Rogue, "I'll take care of you," and meant it more than he or anyone ever had.

Even though nobody can deserve a thing like that.

So she's not going out silently. She's not going out gracefully, either. She's going to cry and beg and scream until she has no voice.

Locked in the towering torch of symbolic new beginnings, she tugs at her restraints with all her muted strength and gives into the life-affirming sensation of terror. Her head might be a graveyard, but her redemption is worth so much more.


	20. Great Gig in the Sky, chapter 4

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track four / "GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"**

**LIFE AND LIMB FOR A KISS OF DEATH**

"_You're so full of shit. If you were really so righteous _

_it'd be you in that thing."_

– _Logan –_

Logan can barely tilt his neck far enough to see the top of the Statue of Liberty, collared tight as he is in Cyclops' leather daddy getup.

"The torch," the man with the stupid-ass plan says, motioning the start of follow the leader.

"Hey, if you wanna go buy some souvenirs, don't let me stop you." Logan points his thumb back at the jet camouflaged under the George Washington Bridge. "Meanwhile, Storm can drop me off up top, and I'll save the girl express."

"That would be quicker," Storm agrees, giving him a second to feel superior before she exchanges semi-amused looks with Jean. "Except the X-Jet is completely made of metal."

"Like you," Cyclops puts in. "So stay out of Magneto's way."

Logan takes a step forward. "You wanna run that plan by me again?" He didn't put on this dopey goddamn uniform and strap himself into that aerial deathtrap just to be put on bitch detail. Magneto has it coming, and Logan's going to deliver.

Cyclops lets out a long-suffering sigh. "I asked you before if you'd have a problem taking orders. Magneto knows we're coming, but the rest of the world doesn't know the X-Men exist. That's part of our mission."

"You may talk hush-hush, but I'm not the one who gave the train station a new sunroof, pal."

"No, you were the one who stabbed Rogue through the chest."

"Scott," Jean snaps, visibly drained from the stimulant and the stress and Cerebro.

Logan trains his glare back on Cyclops. "Hey, why don't you take your little mission and stick it up your – "

Thunder crashes. Storm's eyes are as fogged over as the harbor. "We work as a team," she says. "There's a seventeen year-old girl and a city full of people to save. Settle this." In that moment, she's as compelling as the Professor ever could be.

"I'm sorry," Cyclops states, looking each of them in the eye sincerely.

Share the burden, Logan reminds himself. Do right by Marie. He motions Cyclops forward with only a minor undercurrent of sarcasm.

Judging by the claw marks, Sabretooth took out the guards at the base of the Statue awhile ago. Jean doesn't find any pulses. Cyclops sets his jaw, and Logan reads his thoughts as a red scroll across his visor: "Two I didn't save." Heroes. The guilt only lets them stay shiny so long.

They climb in through the busted door, heads swiveling. Magneto's goons could be anywhere. Cyclops motions to keep silent, so they can't get the jump as easily. Logan takes the rear as the four of them file into a room full of overpriced junk practically on their tiptoes.

Little knives stab at Logan's eardrums when he sets of the metal detector. He promptly sticks his claws in it.

Through the sparks, Fearless Leader gives him an unappreciative look. Logan lets his middle claw do the apologizing. Cyclops takes the abuse with the derisive half-smile of somebody with a working sense of humor. Logan sniffs the air suspiciously. Cologne's unmistakable, so One-Eye checks out. But there's still that smell.

"There's someone here."

"Where?"

"I dunno. Keep your eye open," he recommends, slipping out of the room's dimly lit center.

"Logan." Cyclops loses sight of him. "Damn it."

From the shadows, a ripple of blue catches his eye. A moment later, that shapeshifting bitch steps out wearing an X-Man Wolverine suit. "I know there's someone here, I just cant see him." Cyclops, Storm, and Jean busy looking around, Mystique brandishes a set of claws.

Logan comes at her from the side, knocking her into the ground. She's faster on her feet even in his body. She twists his face into a sadistic grin as she merrily prances out of his reach. He kicks her back into the maintenance hall and they square off. Her second set of claws shoot out. The savage delight she emanates from his eyes puts a look of disgust on his own face.

She blows him a kiss, and it's right up there with the goddamn creepiest things he's ever seen.

"Logan!" Cyclops shouts, his hand to his visor.

The grin falls from Mystique's stolen face as they both put out their hands to keep from getting blasted.

Mystique slices through some cables, slamming the door on their private party from hell.

She gets him with an elbow to the forehead. Logan retaliates with a backhand claw swipe that would have cut her in half. He growls, his frustration readily apparent.

"Tick-tock."

"You're prettier with your mouth shut." Stuck-up barfly told him that once. He fucked her friend instead.

Mystique runs at Logan, bending him over a metal bar. She suffocates him with one hand. "I kissed her goodbye for you," she uses his voice to leer. Against the leather glove between them, she presses her lips.

Furious at the implication, Logan bites down on her palm and shoves her off of him. She slashes his face, but he slices through her flimsy excuse for adamantium. She shrieks and runs.

The next room is flooded in red lights. Logan ambles in, limbering up as he does. She comes at him with a flip, but he has no qualms about jacking himself in the face. Getting some height, she spin kicks back into her lithe, femme fatal self. When she hits the ground, she licks her bleeding lip with a promise in her eyes that says been a naughty boy.

Disturbingly distracting thoughts swirl around Logan's brain, keeping her on top. She contorts herself around him, cracking his back and choking him. Impotently, he tries to gut her like a scaly blue fish. She runs her fingernails down his cheek slowly, drawing blood. He can smell Marie on her hands. Twisted bitch, using his face and the kid's trust to fucking prey on her.

Mystique catches his renewed ferocity. Before he can furiously break from her grasp, she kicks him square in the nuts.

He's just managed to straighten himself up when he catches a steel chain in his claws. He drags her in so they're face to face, but she flips away to hit him with a goddamn door. Logan claws through it. She saves herself with a ballerina move. Like a damn spider monkey, she climbs up a pipe upside down.

Leaving Logan on the ground, balls in hand, wondering how the fuck he could be losing.

All five sense at maximum alert, Logan tries to pick up Mystique's trail again. He's more than prepared to finish her off.

Lightening glints from the tinted windows.

"Logan, is that you?" Storm's voice, from behind.

What a tired trick. "Shh." He sniffs once more for confirmation. "The other one ain't far away."

"Come on. We have to regroup." It's even something Storm would say.

Closer. That's it. Right behind him.

"I know, but there's a problem." He pivots and sinks his claws right into her squishy entrails.

Storms gentle eyes flare in shock, then cloud over as she gasps.

"You're not part of the group."

Her eyes go yellow, and the claws reappear as fingers. Storm's white hair turns to red.

Savagely, Logan retracts his claws only to shoot them out again. When she shrieks, he replies, "Shouldn't have touched her."

"You're a saint," Mystique hisses with Marie's face, blood visible in her mouth.

Her accusation misses the mark. Logan doesn't need to be a saint, just not the kind of pervert Mystique gets off on. She's made the difference so obvious to him, he should almost thank her.

She falls off his claws, completely herself as she breathes her last.

Logan brushes himself off, lets his bruises heal, and goes off to do exactly what she said. Regroup.

He opens and door and there's Cyclops with his hand to his visor again. He's half-carrying Jean.

"Hey – Hey. It's me."

Cyclops has gotten a little savvier. "Prove it."

"You're a dick."

The Boy Scout takes a second to decide if he'll let that kind of language slide. "Okay."

Never would've guessed it takes high-stress situations to loosen Cyclops up enough to be passably human.

From the stairs above, Storm catches their attention. "Come on."

It's a long, steady climb up to the top. They take assessment of their situation: Mystique and Toad eliminated, leaving Sabretooth and Magneto. In the spirit of getting fucking on with it, Logan doesn't comment on the fact that it took three supposedly trained superheroes to dispatch one leap frog whose best weapon was his tongue, for shit's sake.

They're barely inside Lady Liberty's head when Logan looks up at the ceiling and finds he can't look back down. "Everybody get out of here."

"What is it?" Cyclops asks instead of doing anything useful.

"I can't move." Logan is flung halfway to the ceiling.

A piece of green metal clamps Storm low on the wall. Cyclops tries to blast a piece coming for him, but he just ends up with his arms strapped down. He's facing Jean, who can't budge the metal no matter how hard she grits her teeth.

Magneto flows down, palms up. "Ah, my brothers. Welcome." He looks over at Logan. "And you. Let's point those claws of yours in a safer direction." Effortlessly, Magneto bends Logan's arms. He clamps his fists square against his sternum and seals him in with part of the wall.

Sabretooth jumps down, amping up Logan's already high level of motherfucking pissed off Wolverine.

To Cyclops, Magneto warns, "You better close your eyes." Sabretooth pulls off his visor and drops it to the ground.

Eyelids squeezed as tight as his jaw, Cyclops grunts, "Storm, fry 'em."

"Oh yes, a bolt of lighting into a huge copper conductor. I thought you lived at a school."

Sabretooth's deadened eyes are trained directly on Logan. He growls nearly inaudibly, but the beast deep down in Logan recognizes the challenge.

"Mystique." Magneto gets only the crackle of a dead line for a response. "Mystique."

Logan opens his mouth to drop the news that he killed the bitch, but Jean cuts in. "I've seen Teleford Porter."

"So, my teleport managed to break out of Hiram Prison. And to find you. He's become even more powerful than I could've imagined."

"He's dead," Jean reveals.

"It's true."

Storm had been the one watching him, while Jean fixed Cerebro, Cyclops calmed the students, and Logan managed his frustrations in the high-tech gym they called the Danger Room.

"I saw him die. Like those people down there will die."

"I fail to see the connection. You know as well as I the brutalities visited on those poor souls in Hiram Prison."

"They did experiment on him," Jean concedes. "But I performed the autopsy myself. It was brain cancer."

"Your machine killed him. Slowly, but it did kill him." Storm keeps steady eye contact as Magneto bends down to her.

"I don't believe you," he enunciates. A steaming load, far as Logan can tell. Any sonuvabitch ready and willing to murder one of his blessed "brothers" for the cause ain't about to be tearjerked by elevated cancer risks.

Storm keeps on trying to appeal to an insane man's reason. "You can't be that certain."

"My dear, someone has to be," Magneto replies, as if he's the one making noble sacrifices.

The faint pop of fireworks from Ellis Island alerts them that the UN Summit festivities have begun. All the ducks lining themselves up in rows.

Magneto pushes himself away from Storm's condemning gaze dramatically. "Why do none of you understand what I'm trying to do? Those people down there, they control our fate and the fate of every other mutant." He waits for doubt to flicker in Storm's eyes. Jean is just as unswayed. "Well. Soon our fate will be theirs."

Beneath the sound of the fireworks, Logan hears the echo of Marie's small, strained voice begging for help. His blood boils.

"You're so full of shit. If you were really so righteous it'd be you in that thing."

Magneto turns the full impact of his colorless gaze on Logan.

Louder now, Marie repeats, "Help! Somebody help me!"

They all hear her now. The X-Men increase their struggles to get free as Magneto silently raises himself above his so-called brothers.

"Please! Somebody please help me!"

Her voice is brittle. She must have been yelling for an eternity by now. Magneto had to have done something to drain her strength. Her hysterics mean she knows what's coming next.

"Somebo – " Her voice drops too low for him to make out anymore.

Sweat drips from his forehead into his stinging eyes. He tests how much room he has in his restraints.

Keep calling, Marie, he wills her. This ain't the end. Don't give up on me yet.

She's up there all alone, tied up and helpless, knowing that bastard sonuvabitch coward is on his way to lay his hands on her. He'll force himself inside her head. She'll fight him, and it'll hurt her so much. So goddamn much.

Logan lets out a roar for Marie to hear, and unleashes his claws through his ribs and out his back. His heart bleeds where he nicked it.

* * *

The restraints give way against his bulk. His name is on Jean's lips. He plunges straight down, landing spread-eagle hard enough for his lungs to bruise.

Hard enough to fool Sabretooth, who stands above him. He growls. Logan opens his eyes. Quicker than the dumb bastard can respond, Logan has his claws shoved as far into him as they'll go.

Sabretooth sends him flying outside onto the Statue of Liberty's crown. A foot more and it would've been a hell of a long way down.

A paw picks him up by the back of his uniform. As he's thrown through the cold night air, Logan grimly notes that Fangs' obvious healing factor is apparently faster than his own. On his sore side, he hits the ground. In one fluid motion, he rolls to his feet and unleashes his claws.

Sabretooth's response is to cold-clock him into next week. Logan lifts his ringing head to find his tag hanging in front of his double vision. While Sabretooth is busy growling his triumph, Logan breaks the chain with a claw.

"This is mine." A decent man can make that claim on an object. But even as he drips his tag into his uniform, the crude fact remains – having it back does nothing to alleviate the enormous pressure threatening to break him from the inside.

Abruptly, Logan's hurtling toward the city's skyline again, fireworks bursting in air behind him. He manages to thrust a set of claws into a point on the Statue's crown. Momentum spins him three hundred and sixty degrees until he's back on his feet.

When Sabretooth squares off across from him, animal to animal, something on the razor's edge of familiar cuts through Logan. Sabretooth has always been stronger.

He knows that intimately, without anyone having to tell him. Same way he knows Storm's serenity has to come out of a chaotic past, that Cyclops must be a momma's boy, that Jean has another side buried deep. Same way he recognized Marie in that dive in Laughlin City, hard as he tried to deny her. Facts are facts. It's what he chooses to do about them that counts.

So, knowing he has an snowman's chance in hell, Logan launches himself at Sabretooth's throat. He gets him on his back. Logan pulls back his elbow, ready to take off his head.

From above, Marie lets out an unholy scream. Nothing, not even certain defeat, can stop Logan from looking up in alarm.

Sabretooth hurls Logan off Lady Liberty for the third time. Logan waits until he's halfway down her face before he sticks in a claw. Sabretooth doesn't even bother to glance down for the satisfaction of seeing his opponent's mangled body cratered in pavement. Bastard's stupidity flies in the face of instinct.

Quickly and precisely, Logan punches pockmarks into the historic national monument as he scales back up.

Back on top, Logan looks down into the head. The X-Men are still rendered useless. But when Sabretooth touches a thick fingernail to Storm's cheek and tells her, "You owe me a scream," the look in Jean's eye makes it clear that shit isn't going to stand.

Logan jumps down to make it easier for her. A little breathless, he says, "Hey, bub. I'm not finished with you yet."

A cracking snap arrests all their attentions. Logan has to shield his eyes against the light as the torch explodes open. Marie's screams blend with Magneto's.

Logan rips his eyes from the light to meet Jean's fierce gaze. Woman has a plan.

"Scott, when I tell you open your eyes."

"No!"

"Trust me."

Logan holds up Cyclops's visor. "You drop something?"

Jean floats it into position and adjusts the blast. "Now."

Hot, red light hits Sabretooth square in the chest. Roaring, he rockets backward. Logan watches him all the way down. When he's safely crashed into the splintered shards of some poor sap's boat, Logan frees Storm, Jean, and Cyclops.

"Thanks," Cyclops says in a clear attempt to be the bigger man.

Logan lifts his eyebrows ironically. "Don't mention it."

The four of them line up on the edge of the gaping hole Cyclops punched Sabretooth through. Magneto is a gray lump below the thick, spreading light. Marie is alone on the top of the world. Still hollering her head off, so Logan knows the fight hasn't left her.

"Gotta get her out of there_. _Cyclops, can you hit it?"

"The rings are moving too fast."

"Just shoot it!"

"I'll kill her." Cyclops can't hold the intensity of Logan's gaze. "Storm, can you get me up there?"

"I can't control it like that. You could fly right over the torch."

A hardness threatens to settle on the half-masked face of the X-Men's fearless leader. He could have taken Logan at his word. Marie's not the only one running out of time. Right now, it's save Marie and save the city. But in a few minutes it's going to be save Marie or save the city. Someone Cyclops knows or faceless millions? The classic hero's gambit.

Just one more reason heroics ain't Logan's line of work.

"Then let me go," he volunteers. "If I don't make it, then at least you can still blast the damn thing." Cyclops can feel real noble for trying anyway, and then real pissed at Logan for blocking his shot.

"All right, do it. Jean, use your power, try to steady him."

Storm backs up with a Hail Mary in her voice. "Hang onto something."

A strong wind kicks up instantly, lifting him off his feet. He looks back at Jean, the only person between him and the bottom of the harbor. His stomach lurches as he flips higher. Suspended upside down, he reaches out to catch hold of the machine. The wind stops, allowing Logan to push himself to his feet.

From the side of the platform, Magneto does the same. Logan wonders how the hell that fucker is still conscious as he drops down into the bright light.

Marie's eyes are shut tight. The grip of her hands on the machine forces her body up. It's agony where she is, but a least she's still alive.

Logan springs his claw to free her. Magneto has enough juice left to slow him down, bend his claws – It's possible they'll stay deformed. He imagines the gore. Every time – But the pain only compels him to push harder. His left hand set of claws are easier to control. Just a few more seconds. Hang in there, darlin'.

Neck visibly straining, Marie hiccups a sob. The hair at her temples goes shock white.

His claws clink against the metal rings. That's it. Closer. His skeleton spasms with each clang. The thickening light must be almost to Ellis Island by now. Sparks fly out. Damn it, Cyclops, don't try and be Captain America. You called her your student, so put her first. Christ's sake. Just wait –

Red flashes in his peripheral vision, striking Magneto and freeing up Logan's claws to shatter the machine in an explosion of intensely dazzling luminosity.

The opaque sky is heavy and black above the city's shuddering glimmer. Suspended between the two is an abyss – silence and sound, death and life – three hundred feet up and entirely self-contained. A second holds an infinity.

Cut through the restraints, and Logan and Marie is all there is.

She's delicate as a spider web, just as deceptively strong. The tremor he feels as he lifts her body is the ache of his own pulse.

"Come on," he murmurs.

Her eyelashes don't flutter when he touches the blanched strands of her hair. An external marker of internal wounds. She's been aged against her will.

"Come on."

He gets his glove off with his teeth and throws it to the side. His bare hand hangs above her immobile face. There are no cuts to heal over, just a mind relentlessly invaded. But his is an offering. He places his palm on her still warm skin. Closes his eyes.

Logan waits for a pull that isn't there. Life-force is too intangible a concept, so he thinks about his open vein pouring directly into her. He pushes. Nothing.

Emotion seethes up and simmers over. Not an animal desperately howling, but a man choking on hope. He tips his nose against her chin and grips her hair. Presses her forehead to his lips. Please. Oh, goddamn it, please. No one could hold her closer.

A tug. Tantalizingly slow. He kisses her forehead again, teeth bared in pain and gratitude. Weakness crashes over him. He cradles her head in the crook of his shoulder, grazes her mouth as the shock of paralysis sets in.

The agonizing crawl of his burning skin forces his eyes open, along with three gashes from the fight with his sick double. Blood soaks his back. Every wound is owed to him – tonight alone how many times has he cheated death? – but what Logan gives to Marie is supposed to be a gift. He wants to be more than his history of violence.

Nothing calms the rage like chasing the flavor of tobacco with an ice-cold brew. Except maybe a Rocky Mountain sunrise or the whistle of an axe splitting a log. The endlessness of the open road. A jukebox that doesn't play anything this side of '79. Greased up auto parts that fit together like a puzzle he's already solved. Not much, these things, but they make up his better nature.

He's lived more substantially in one month than he has in fifteen years. That thought he holds onto. He needs her to be sure that he means what he's doing.

There's so much more. Things he maybe would've liked to see her do – put up flannel wallpaper, rock a toddler on a tree-swing, answer a call from home – but Marie has accepted all a man like Logan can give anybody he loves. The chance to live better off because of him, inevitably without him.

Only – Hell, if he can't cop to it now, as the last bit of his too long life is sucked out of him to be put to decent use, then when? – He would've stuck around this time. He would have. And maybe, a piece down the road, neither of them paying too close attention, Logan would've given his life to Marie a different way.

The excruciating miracle of the here and now proves too much for his mutilated flesh. Logan yields to incremental death.


	21. Great Gig in the Sky, chapter 5

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track four / "GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"**

**KNOW WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED**

_She pans the upset faces of the self-styled X-Men, defenders of blessed humanity, _

_and their blinded protégés. "Oh, the secrets that I know..."_

– _Rogue –_

Awe is a palpable force that hums up her shivering spine to numb her overburdened mind. The world is astonishingly calm in the wake of the frenzied spin of searing metal and vehement purpose. Her hands are her own again. Light is distinguishable from dark. The taste of salt is on her lips.

Rogue is standing high on a pedestal, taking quick and easy breaths. Below her, Logan is motionless where he lay down.

The incoming jet blows back her hair. Rogue cannot take her eyes from Logan's face. The enormity of his gift, tremendous and heavy, bows her shoulders. Voices yell her name. She doesn't want them to break into this moment. They want to know how she is.

The answer is invincible.

Palms up, she claims the metal of Logan's bones to raise him into the jet's open hatch. Rogue reads Jean's startled worry from above – If Erik's powers are inside her, what else of him does she carry? – and compounds the marvel others have made of her by leaping into effortless flight.

Inside the cramped jet, Rogue follows Jean's clipped orders with the clear, simple lethargy of a dreamer caught between asleep and awake. She maneuvers Logan's arms so Jean can cut off his uniform at his torso, tilts a chair into a makeshift gurney.

Storm leads Rogue by the elbow into the seat one over and buckles her in sideways as best she can. "She's is barely responsive. She may be drugged."

She shakes her head. Nope, all better. Look what she can do: Turn her chin, and Logan's inert head mimics her movement so she can watch his face.

While Jean sets her telekinesis to work securing an oxygen mask and applying gauze to gaping, draining wounds, Rogue gently squeezes the metal in Logan's fingers so it's like she's holding his hand.

"What's the status back there?" Cyclops calls out edgily from the pilot's seat.

"Pulse is faint. His healing factor's reversed itself – " Jean's words die on a note of distress. The display of power that before seemed like second nature weakens.

Storm catches a thick strip of gauze before it can slip and puts pressure on the wound beneath. In a steadying tone, she says, "What can we do?"

"He needs a transfusion." Jean is soaked in so much of Logan's blood, she's forgotten that cause of death is never the snakebite, always the slow poison.

Jet engines give a slight jerk as their speed picks up. Unease rolls over in Rogue's stomach in slow motion. She feels separate from herself. Something terrible looms behind her head. She has to keep stock-still against the horror-filled urge to look back, or else she'll lose her balance.

The abrupt sound of her name makes her shoot out her hands to keep her from toppling over.

"Logan can't wait for a defibrillator, but his adamantium is too thick. I need you to try to compress it. Rogue? Can you do that? I need you to focus, sweetie. That's it. Right here."

Where Jean's hand indicates, Rogue pushes in.

"One, release. Two. Three – Good. Again. One, two, three…"

Logan still has a pulse when the X-Jet touches down in the underground hanger. Jean, clearly noting how much effort Rogue's palpitations have become, concentrates hard enough to lift Logan's heavy frame herself.

Rogue's arms and legs hang inanimate. She should really move them.

A thick, leather glove cups her chin and directs her watery gaze somewhere vaguely around Cyclops's nose. "God. What did he do to you?"

Her vision further blurs over. Logan or Erik?

Cyclops unbuckles her and scoops her into his arms. His gait as he carries her to the med lab is even, but Rogue's lulling head is still jostled by each step. When she's propped up on a cot, she lets it fall to her chest.

Quick shadows crowd her.

Kitty gasps, "Oh my gosh."

"Girls, get back. Rogue's in bad shape."

"She's completely catatonic," Jubilee diagnoses.

Kitty ducks down to get a look at Rogue's face. "No, she's crying."

"Girls. Back. What are you even doing down here?"

From somewhere behind Rogue, Jean calls, "Scott, I need you."

"We were visiting the Professor," Jubilee replies, but Cyclops is already across the room.

"Logan's O-negative." Universal donor. Rogue herself is AB-positive, the universal parasite.

Cyclops indulges himself with a brief noise of irritation before unzipping his uniform to offer his recent tormentor a lifeline.

In a whisper pitched high by drive-by car crash distress, Jubilee tells Kitty, "A little blood isn't gonna do much for a dude who looks like he got put through a woodchipper." Jubilee sounds like she could hurl. "Wolverine's about to kick the big one, isn't he?"

A flinch turns into a shudder.

"She can hear you," Kitty berates loudly.

The line on the heart monitor is audibly slow.

"Ororo, watch the blood – and hold this…" Electricity revs up. "Clear." Jean takes a moment to say, "Try not to worry, Rogue. His pulse is much stronger than it was. You did a good job."

Rogue made Logan's heart beat. That's a poetic thought.

White-hot mortification shoots straight to her fingertips. Poetic, noble – names given to elevated perversions to make what's ugly seem beautiful. All that blood…The bottom of the cot crumples under her hands. No such thing as a clean sacrifice. And there's no virtue in lesser evils. She can bet when Logan committed suicide on her he didn't stop to think how long she'd have to watch him die.

"Worth it."

She doesn't know how those words came out of her mouth, but she crumbles on them completely. Suddenly, she's shaking and crying with more abandoned sincerity than she's allowed herself since the day she sent David to the hospital.

"Worth it?" It's a cynical, sobbing question. She twists herself back. "What if it wasn't?"

Mistake. Behind her isn't Logan, but the void. Her fall is months in coming.

Bare skin pinwheels out of her way. There's nothing to stop Rogue from smacking her skull against the floor with solid precision. Uncountable see-through toes curl horror, kneecaps jut out all around her.

Kitty reaches out with her bright blue cast. "Rogue…"

The monster crawls over Rogue in the dark.

"Don't touch me!"

Jubilee doesn't hesitate to drag Kitty back.

"Don't touch," Rogue sobs, struggling to her knees. "You did this – I just touched him. I didn't mean to – It's your fault – It's not my fault!"

Storm edges forward to offer a blood-smeared glove to help Rogue wobble to her feet. "We know it's not. We know."

"I said stay away from me!" Rogue shrieks, skittering into the empty space between the prone forms of Logan and the Professor. "You should've listened."

"I'm sorry – "

Rogue hugs herself. "I had to know. It could've been psychosomatic – I am not psycho. My body, my decision. That's what you promised! – How could I have known…You need so much more help than I can give you."

"Out on a limb here, but I don't think that's Rogue," Jubilee shakily observes.

Posture gone haughty, Rogue quips, "'I am vast. I contain multitudes.'"

Jean meticulously divides her attention between scrutinizing Rogue and reapplying bandages that don't stay white for long. "Everyone keep very still and try to be calm. She's having a schizophrenic episode."

"You would know all about that, wouldn't you, my dear?" She pans the upset faces of the self-styled X-Men, defenders of blessed humanity, and their blinded protégés. "Oh, the secrets that I know..." Her hand comes to rest beside Charles' head. "You keep your children so ignorant, old friend. Do you think they'll turn on you? "

In the half-second she's peered down, Jean has a sedative making a beeline for Rogue's throat. She plucks the needle out of the air and snaps it in half. "It's painful to see how far he has held you back. You could be transcendent."

_What are you afraid of?_

Rogue's attention is jolted to Professor Xavier's static expression.

"I ain't afraid."

But outrage gives way to validation.

"So it's true. There are mutants who can enter our minds." In her unease, she addresses the more familiar party. "Tell me, Dr. Grey, why shouldn't I, why shouldn't the American people be afraid?"

Jean Grey's head lifts. "Senator Kelly?"

"That madmen, his 'old friend.' He assassinated a US Senator and tried to murder a young mutant more afraid of herself than anybody else could ever be. So, do, tell me, what stands between us and chaos? A prayer? Your goodwill? This school? You might not advocate licenses to live, but do ascribe to a different brand of control: Diplomas."

It's Storm who answers, "Every school in America teaches ethics, Rogue. We don't institutionalize values. And we can't fix you, because there's nothing wrong with you."

Hissing, Rogue slides her hands through her hair erratically. This whiteness is not innocence, but the mark of an angry God. "Nah, she got them demons. I see 'em in her. Crawlin' in, curlin' up. Makin' a nest all in her insides."

"Mutations are based in science," the redheaded witch counters. "They aren't specters preying on people in the dark."

_What are you afraid of?_

Oh. Rogue lowers her hands. Still itching for movement, she begins to pace around the Professor. "The dark? That what you're gettin' at with this cryptic whisper bullshit? So, what about it?"

No answer.

"Come on, old man. You got everybody in the room lookin' at me like I'm sproutin' heads."

His silence looms.

Rogue whips around to the dumbstruck spectators. "What?" She's invasion of the body snatchers. Worse, it's like they've never seen her before. The look is called the I-knew-you-yesterday-but-now…? and it's a popular one down in Meridian. Wetness streams down her neck. "Quit starin' and get out."

Logan's comforting presence. She comes up to stand behind him, at a loss for how to reach out to him. His struggle for life is narrated by his heart monitor. Beep. Be-beep. Be-beep. Beep. Rogue carefully places her the top of her head against his.

That rhythm again. Me. Awake. Aware. Me.

Warmth settles on her back. She accepts the blanket, and Jean releases her telekinetic hold. The med lab's door swishes shut, leaving Rogue and Jean the only conscious people in the room.

Rogue's mind is a bruise. What is she afraid of? The dark, yes. The void and the personalities in it. Her monster. But she made up those things. They're names she's given her actual fear, which itself is two-fold. The girl with the plan and the girl with the lost eyes. One feels the urge to strike out on her own as intensely as the need to breath; the other suffocates on worry, knowing that no one gone is unforgettable.

Alone. Lonely. Strength exists there somewhere, but Rogue has submerged herself in weakness.

She took their strength. She welcomed their conversations, in spite of herself. She invented how they fill the dark and feed the monster.

Only now she's losing herself to those interactions self-designed to keep her separate.

Rogue wipes snot on her sleeve as she looks up to Jean for confirmation. "He can't die."

Very honestly, she answers, "If he survives the night, he'll make it. You can stay down here, but I will have to sedate you."

"Not too much," Rogue compromises. "I got things to sort out."

She takes off her cloak and her shoes, while Jean prepares a bed for her in the far corner of the room where the lights are dim. Rogue submits to the needle, then curls up on her side, facing the wall.

"I heard him, too. The Professor. I find he's never far away when I need him most." Jean rubs Rogue's arm. "I'll be right here…" Her presence is already fading.

For the first time since her mutation manifested, Rogue dreams.

Night terrors visit her from the past – Desolate faces behind barbed wire, a rusted needle jabbing flesh. A gun trained at a girl tearing at her headscarf, translator saying she was raped by an American soldier. The agony of boiling metal seeping through bone over the clink of champagne glasses.

More and more, their nightmares, too. Mutants felling a giant robotic sentinel – what project Wide Awakeawake has deemed humanity's last line of defense. Herself, locked in a mental institution, unable to recognize her even own mother. Kneeling in Logan's blood in a red-lit motel. Her skin to his claw, both of them on the edge of death by each other. Underneath all that, she hears her name. Logan's voice, her momma's. Calling out to her. Marie! Marie, Marie, Marie…

When she was a child, Marie used to dream the monster under her bed was crouched on her chest, forcing her to scream and scream in silence, praying her momma would hear her somehow and come running. She never did.

Now, again paralyzed and screaming, she has to relearn how to distinguish what is real from what is not.

An eternity until it's over. She fights her exhaustion, her compulsion to stay down.

She sits up. She touches her face, hugs her elbows, wraps her fingers around the bottoms of her feet. The disconnect has been erased. Rogue has been away from her body so long, the feeling of return is an odd sensation. She might be bigger on the inside now, but it's still home.

It's going to be a long, complicated battle to take back her sense of self. But she can start by renaming who she is inside once more time.

"What kind of a name is Rogue, anyway?" She never stopped being Marie.

* * *

Logan's chest rises and falls regularly. Awe – and gratitude and bewilderment and devotion – swell her racing heart so big she can't look at him. She's is flustered by the feelings that led him to his sacrifice because he is.

Still feels worth it, and this time she thinks so, too. Finally, she's found somebody as invincible as she is.

Getting centered, Marie stands up to reacquaint herself with the world outside her head. There's a change of clothes and a laundered cloak neatly stacked for her on a table. Jeanie let herself fall asleep at her desk with a pencil between her teeth. The Professor's cot is empty.

Alls signs that things are going to be okay.

Marie hangs the stack of clothes over her elbow on her way toward Logan. He's still wrapped up, but some of his wounds, like the one across his forehead, are nothing more than red scratches.

"Give me a minute, sugar." She slides her bare fingers through Logan's hair before she heads out the door.

It's light out but too early for the halls to be anything but empty. The Professor, himself again in white collared shirt and suit jacket, is expecting her when she opens his office door.

She's struck for a moment by those secrets that she knows. The Professor is himself again but also someone more. But Marie finds she can respect his privacy by shifting her focus to who he is to her: that rare thing, a person who understands what she's going through and genuinely wants to help.

"Mornin', Professor."

By the way he watches her take a seat, she knows how glad he is to see her well. "Good morning…"

She lifts an eyebrow. Marie is her name, but Rogue is for the rest of the world. Nothin' personal.

The Professor steeples his fingers in acquiescence. "Rogue, I have a lot of news for you. To begin, I've just spoken with Dr. McCoy. Magneto is under strict custody at Hiram Prison, where a plastic cell is being constructed to contain him. The effects of the machine never reached Ellis Island."

"Five guards lost their lives. Telford Porter. Henry Gyrich, Senator Kelly."

"Yes."

"Still." If only clean-cut wins counted, there'd be no such thing as victories. Or heroes. Much as he begrudges them, Logan proved the world wouldn't be better off without heroes by turning into one. "I'm alive, and so is Logan."

"You're more alive today than you have been in a long while, I think. I sense Logan's personality at the forefront of your mind, but the rest seems to be completely at peace."

"Whatever you did worked. All that fear talk. I figured out I'm my own worst enemy and…I dunno. I stopped forcin' the others down and just let 'em be. It was horrible – and it's gonna be horrible – but it's a start."

"Last night, you survived Erik Lehnsherr's nightmares in so many different ways with more grace than can be expected of any one under the circumstances. I'd call it an excellent start."

Marie scrubs at her face. "I don't know how I got so wrong inside."

"Mental mutations are the most difficult to handle. Perhaps because evolution has not leaped forward enough to make the mind comfortable with so much intangibility. When I was your age, I battled with insanity."

"But you taught yourself how to control it."

"Control isn't a lesson. It's a lifelong process of negotiation. Sometimes I feel I'm losing an intrinsic connection to my physicality…As I said, it remains a negotiation." His thoughts and his gaze return to Marie. "You've been engaged in this negotiation as long as you've been a mutant. People react differently when you touch them. Erik held onto you just as long as Logan did but remained conscious. You accepted Logan's gift, but you rejected as much of Erik as you possibly could."

The ghost of her pride ticks the corner of her lip up. "Sometimes it's not hard to take just a little. There's a difference I can feel sometimes. Especially in mutants."

"Perhaps the difference is between life-force – memories, personalities – and certain…we could call them genetic-based skill-sets, as in a human's ability to run fast or a mutant's gifts. Life-force correlates to consciousness, skill-sets to how much of their abilities you retain." The Professor contemplates her like a puzzle.

Marie shifts uncomfortably. It's too soon to start relabeling herself. "Yeah, I'm real fascinating. But you said you had news?"

"I do. Dr. McCoy has informed me that, after hearing your story, the International Mutant Rights Initiative contacted Jim and Lisa Danvers. The Initiative wants them to file suit against Southaven."

Marie lets out her held breath. "Magneto had Mystique steal evidence the Southaven evidence to make me think dying for his bullshit cause would be my greatest revenge. It's all on a laptop in his lair. I can't get to it no problem."

"Yes, I see. I'll will have it taken care of immediately. But what you must consider is how much of a role you wish to have in the proceedings."

"You mean if I mind havin' my name in the paper."

"That, and the Danvers have requested to meet with you before they agree to file suit."

She swallows back a throat-gut twinge. That's the one she never figured. "When?"

"They're flying into New York City today. Scott will escort you to their hotel, if you agree to the meeting. If not, Dr. McCoy will persuade them to continue without you."

Marie pushes back her chair. "Lemme think on it."

"Of course."

"Anything else?"

"Not for now. Come back when you're ready."

She goes straight upstairs to Logan's room. The cigars he normally keeps on his nightstand aren't there, so she roots around in his bag where a few loose ones have settled on the bottom. Even the familiarity of the scent under her nose relaxes her. Unfortunately, the large inhalation also gives her a whiff of herself. Shower first, smoke later.

Marie has gotten used to symbolic gestures, so she takes her time washing away the madness.

Clean enough for fresh starts, she wipes the fog from the mirror. Against her reddened skin and dark mass of hair, the bleached white strands have an almost preternatural glow. She's heard of people's hair turning white because of fear. She figures that's what happened, and decides to own it. When people look at her hair, they'll see that she's been as scared as anyone ever could be – and not only survived but become all the stronger for it.

That's the plan, anyway. It starts with looking the Danvers in the eye and telling them how sorry she is for their loss.

Who can say where it ends. Maybe in jets and fancy uniforms. Magneto and Kelly have given her insights into the coming war – and made her certain Professor Xavier's hero squad, uptight geeks that they are, at least got the right idea.

Under the sink she finds a blow-dryer and a hairbrush. She takes time with her appearance, because she's fashioning a persona. A better, faster, wiser Rogue. Long black opera gloves, tight dark jeans and a black belt with shiny silver buttonholes, gray lacy tank under a dark green button-down rolled to her elbows and her cloak to go over it. She empties Logan's hiking pack and picks it up. His cigars and John's lighter go in her pocket.

Before she heads out, she checks herself out in the full-length mirror. Overall effect: feminine and tough. And older. Definitely older. Her eyes roll up from her curvy hips to her hint of cleavage. "Lookin' good, darlin'." It's a strange thing, making herself blush.

Her roommates are still in bed when she comes in. Marie just needs her toothbrush and some underwear and another shirt. She's got a soft spot for her damp, ratty Converse – ew, the money stuffed in there is probably so gross – but there's a whole new selection in the closet.

At the noise, Jubilee sits up in bed and stares.

Marie holds a gorgeous black leather fuck-me boot against her bare foot. Perfect fit. "Mind if I borrow these, Jubes?"

"Uh…Power to you, I guess."

Kitty is awake now, too. Her eyes are wide and watery. "…Are you okay?"

"Peachy-keen. How's the paw, Kit-Kat?" Marie zips the boots up like butter and takes a few steps. "These feel expensive."

Jubilee props herself on her pillows with a slight snort. "They were liberated from a Christian Dior. Consider them a gift. Mazel tov on the quick recovery."

Marie puts a cigar between her teeth and lights it expertly. "A sheynam dank," she replies on her first exhale.

"Girlie, I hate to notice…"

"Concern appreciated." She waves away the smoke curling in front of her face. "It'll fade."

Kitty hooks her arms under her knees. "You're not leaving, are you?"

"Nah, the Professor just has some things for me to square away in the city." She hoists Logan's pack to her back by one strap. "Keep your snot-noses clean." She raises a fist. "And keep the pride."

Jubilee shakes out her bed-head. "We'll sure try, Grandpa Rogue X."

By now, sleepy-eyed kids have started wandering the hallway. The wide berth they give her doesn't feel like fear – Because it's respect. Marie exhales a long puff out of the corner of her mouth.

The Rogue has already become legend.

Door to Cyclops's room proves irresistible. She pushes it open and catches him doing his morning exercises in just a tiny pair of boxers. Logan thinks of him as "pretty boy" in a belittling way, but from Marie's point of view…Damn.

Cyclops is awkwardly frozen under the force of her very Wolverine-like leer.

"Professor needs you to give me a ride later on. You'll find me in lab with your girl." Marie tilts her head to better see the curve of his ass. "Nice. Keep it up." She takes her sweet time closing the door.

And that, dear Logan, is how you render the fearless leader of the X-Men speechless. Win.

Marie puts out the butt of the cigar in a plant in the entrance hall before taking the elevator down to the med lab.

Jean is on the phone, her back to the door. "Scott, I'm sure she wasn't looking at you inappropriately."

The buzz of Cyclops's voice turns insulted.

"That wasn't what I meant. Of course I find you attractve." Jean sounds exasperated. "…What do you mean 'Logan's influence'?"

Oh, that is too rich. It gives their cockfights a whole other connotation.

Jean turns around to Marie's out and out snickers. "Um, what? – No, Scott, she's here. I have to go." She puts down the phone.

"For the record, I was checkin' him out. Nothin' wrong with a little pretty. Don't tell Logan I said this, but that's kind of my type." Rogue eyes Jean up and down, too, for good measure.

Her hands stop suddenly on their way to fix her messy ponytail. "Um, hello. Rogue. How does your head feel? Any headaches?" She digs around her desk. "I know I get migraines, so I have plenty of pain relievers."

"Nice thought, Jeanie, but I'm right as I can be."

The good doctor goes back to her patient. "I've monitored Logan's healing ability very carefully. His recovery is faster by the hour." She lifts one of the bandages to run her fingertips along the roughly knitted skin underneath. "See?"

The dedication is flattering. But that's her man lying there, so outside the med lab Red better keep her absurdly large hands off if she knows what's what.

Possibly catching her drift, Jean takes her damn touchable skin away. She messes with Logan's IV drip instead. "You know he won't be happy if you're gone when he wakes up," she comments.

"Should just be a night. Scooter's gonna give me a ride to Manhattan later to meet with Carol's parents and the Mutant Rights whatever."

Jean sends a smile of encouragement. "I hope it goes well. As I'm sure IMRI will tell you at length, a trial like one against Southaven could be a huge step forward for Mutant Rights." She pauses. "More importantly, I hope you get the sense of closure you need out of it."

"Yeah, me, too. Can I get a minute?"

Jean finishes up what she was doing. "I'll bring Scott down. After I apologize." She gives a rueful smile, almost like she and Marie aren't teacher and student, adult and kid. But friends. Which they could be, someday. That'd actually be nice.

When she's gone, Marie puts the hiking pack down and takes her place beside Logan. "Hey," she whispers, resting her gloved hand on the left side of his chest. "I know you don't like big shows of gratitude…So, thanks."

Wouldn't it be wonderful, if he woke up right now? But his steady heartbeat has to be enough. He's here and he's not, like how he is in her head. Maybe it's another way he's giving her the space to draw her own conclusions.

His dog tag is laying in a pile above his shoulder. She picks it up and presses it to her lips before fastening the chain in place behind his neck. She settles it against his skin where it belongs.

"I'll be back before you know it."


	22. Great Gig in the Sky, chapter 6

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**track four / "GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"**

**WHISTLING PAST A GRAVEYARD**

_He closes her fist around the dog tag _

_curled into her cupped palm. "I'll be back for this."_

– _Logan –_

Scent returns first. Then it's sound, the tap-tap of long nails on a keyboard. The noise stops just short of driving him out of his head. Dark orange light filters through his eyelids, plastered shut. Roof of his mouth tastes like Sabretooth's armpit. The air is cool against his bare chest and feet. All five senses in working order and then some. He's got zilch in the way of energy, but fuck it. Not bad for a dead man.

He inhales through his nose. Still can't smell Marie, and that…well, it ain't reassuring.

Something keeps him calm, though. Maybe it's his last bit of faith in a karmic universe. If a guy like Logan's going to be allowed to keep on existing, the world needs a sweet thing like Marie to balance him out.

A chair wheels back. Heels click. Jean fusses with the bandages on his chest, marvels at the unbroken skin. Seems like she might've became a doctor just as an excuse to feel people up.

Logan doesn't let her know he's conscious until she runs her fingers over his stomach. He sucks in a breath and stops her hand. "No. No, that tickles." He opens his eyes to a relieved smile.

"Hey."

"Hey." He can't raise his voice much past a whisper.

"How're you feeling?"

Like somebody sliced him open navel to neck and hung him upside-down to drain. "Fantastic."

"That was a brave thing you did."

That was never the point. "Did it work?" He can tell by Jean's demeanor Marie must be alive. In what kind of a state is what he needs to know.

"Yeah. She's fine."

Fine. He closes his eyes. Thankfulness doesn't begin to describe the emotion spreading out from his chest. She's fine, and he's fine. They both made it through. He's completely unprepared and overcome. Too good to be true is supposed to be exactly that. It's the one he never figured.

Jean is elaborating, "She took on a few of your more charming personality traits for a while."

Past the lump in his throat, he wheezes out a laugh. He can just imagine.

"But we lived through it." A smile in her tone, Jean lightly teases, "I think she's even more taken with you."

He cracks his eyelids. Fifteen years of no attachments tells him to dodge that loaded observation like a less indestructible man would a bullet. Something outrageous would do the trick – you can tell her my heart belongs to someone else, jumps to mind – and then Jean'd go ahead and put him in his place. No responsibility in flirtation from a safe distance.

But he hasn't forgotten his last regret. It's another kind of miracle, the fact that he even wants to stick around. He can't let that go.

Jean's expression shifts, but he knows she's not surprised. She sensed how much Marie means to him before even he did. She called it "complications."

"Logan, you and Rogue – "

He can tell she's worried that Marie's not ready, or that he isn't. And maybe she's right. But it's not like he's getting any older. He'll wait. Long as it takes to be sure.

"How's the Professor?"

Jean takes his close of subject with characteristic grace. "He's good."

"Good." Logan picks up her hand and kisses it. She made sure he survived, so now he can start living.

She gets him out of the doctor stuff she's got him hooked to. He pretends not to need the help she gives him to sit up. He can't believe he's still dizzy.

"How long have I been out?"

"A couple of days."

Jesus. He lets out a growl as he rubs his face.

"You recovered from the brink of death in two nights and a morning." Jean gets him a cup of water. "Don't sound so put out."

He puts back the cup, while she riffles around her desk.

"So." He runs his still-fuzzy tongue over his stale teeth. "Where is she?"

"With Hank McCoy in Manhattan. The International Mutants' Rights Initiative is hoping to push the suit against Southaven through to the Senate Select Committee on Mutants before Congress breaks for recess."

Her choice, he reminds himself, but that doesn't stop the dread from washing through him. "Her name splashed all over the news yet?"

"So far, she's staying behind the scenes. Carol Danvers' parents are the ones filing, so they're getting all the press."

"What about Magneto?"

"The unidentified girl he kidnapped from the train station is being reported as 'vaporized' by the machine, which was nonlethal in intent. The official story for the press is that Magneto, after breaking Vanisher out of Hiram Prison, was betrayed by mutants in his own ranks, and that led to his capture." Jean looks up with a smile. "The suspect 'Red Laser Man' is considered at large."

Logan snorts. Still not as stupid-sounding as Cyclops. "Bet Scooter just loves being the villain."

"As long as the X-Men remain anonymous, this school can keep providing a safe refuge for mutant children. That's all he cares about." No mistaking that proud tone.

She comes back around to hand him a business card with a number on the back.

"What's this?" he asks, taking it.

"Rogue took Scott's cell in case things with IMRI went long."

He thumbs the edges of the card. "Still a thief."

"Reformed. She asked for it. I think it's a sign of trust. What you said was right. Once she found one person to believe in, trusting other people hasn't been so tough. You know her well."

Logan never tried to get to know anybody before. With Marie – he would never call it effortless, but it was easy in it's own way. Natural. Maybe because she's had his number from the beginning. They are a lot alike in the right ways. From that, they can build something good.

"You got a phone?"

After Jean gives up on teaching him how to dial out, she does it herself and leaves him with a ringing phone line.

Marie picks up on the second ring. "Logan?"

"Yeah, it's me, darlin'."

Muffled voices echo in the background. "Excuse me, I have to take this," she murmurs. It's a few more seconds before a door shuts and she's back on the phone even more breathless. "Sugar, you better never scare the ever-lovin' hell out of me like that again."

Logan lowers the phone a bit and looks up to suppress his derisive half-growl. He puts the phone back to his ear. "Same goes double for you. You're walkin' the straight and narrow from now on. Got it?"

"You will, I will."

Shit. He's never sleeping a peaceful night again. "How you doin' over there?"

"Okay. Carol's parents…They're real good people. I mean, I knew they were from her memories. But…" Her pause is nervous. "They haven't seen the security footage yet. IMRI viewed it yesterday, and the Danvers'll watch it this afternoon. I don't know if I should be there."

"I can pick you up in an hour."

"Thanks. But I do want to be there after. I'm gonna give them Carol's tags back. It's the least I can do." She sighs, but it doesn't feel forced. "You know what? As awkward and uncomfortable as all this is…Talking about it – No, doing something about it – It's helping. I feel better."

"That's the best thing you coulda told me. I'm real happy for you."

"I'm still sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. I'll be back tomorrow, though. I know you've got that deal with the Professor."

"I'm not goin' anywhere 'til I see you."

He can all but hear her grin. "'Kay. If you get bored, you can always amuse yourself by asking around about what I got up to during my short but memorable 'Rogue-as-Wolverine' performance art period."

"Lookin' forward to it. Take care of yourself."

"You, too. Oh, hey, Logan? Just between us, I'm 'Marie' again."

Logan shifts the phone to his other ear. He knew that already, somehow. Maybe because she sounds more sure of herself than he's ever heard her. "I'll call you later. Marie."

When he hangs up, he takes a pathetic limp around the lab to get the blood flowing to his legs again. Faced as he was yesterday with a whole day to prowl around this kiddie playschool, all he wants to do is tear up the Danger Room. But, loathe as he is to acknowledge it, he's still not operating at a hundred percent.

He stops in the hallway to swipe another sweatshirt, then heads upstairs to find the Professor. Logan may not be leaving yet, but he's still owed answers.

Xavier's trail leads him outside, where he strides barefoot across the gravely concrete like it doesn't bother him.

Cyclops flashes him a too quick glance as he loads up the Professor's chair in the back of a Cadillac then steadfastly ignores him.

"Ah, Logan, I'm glad you caught us. Wonderful to see you up and about," Xavier says from the passenger seat.

Logan's lean leaves smudges on the Cadillac's shiny black frame. "You, too, Chuck. Where you headed?"

"I'm to visit Magneto at Hiram Prison."

"They just lettin' him have social calls?"

"Under the impression that I am a psychologist consulting with the FBI, yes."

Can't say fairer than that.

"I haven't forgotten our meeting. But I'm afraid I have not had time to gather all the information I could. Since your intention is to stay until Rogue returns…"

Cyclops shoves himself into the driver's seat and slams the door.

"Yeah, it can wait until tomorrow." Logan steps back so he can see past Xavier to Cyclops turning over the engine. "Try a smile, One-Eye. The world don't need ugly. Ain't ya glad I pulled through?"

A flush spreads over his ticking jaw. "Ecstatic. Goodbye."

Logan watches him speed down the lane. Eh, forget it. No use wondering what new has crawled up Cyclops's butt when so many things have already died in there.

He puts a head to his ringing forehead. Christ but he could use a drink. He needs shoes, though. Mansion Estates, Upstate New York probably isn't the kind of place that boasts a lot of drive-thru liquor stores. Land of the free, his ass.

Logan trudges back upstairs for a change of clothes. On his way, the smell of ash and unwashed socks gives him the idea for a detour to the delinquent's room.

"Where d'ya keep booze?"

Pyro jumps half a foot, spilling processed orange-colored styrofoam and dark soda on the rug between him and the linebacker kid. He smears the crap around his gaping mouth on the back of his hand. "Uh…I don't – "

"I wasn't born yesterday. Gimme everythin' you got in your stash, and we'll keep it between us."

Palms up as to ward off an attack, Pyro gets to his feet. "What, you want my pot, too?"

"Liquids, Sparky. I'm thirsty."

"It's up on the roof."

"Waitin'."

Pyro tries to play his hesitation off as cool when he edges past Logan's looming presence in the doorframe. Once out of immediate striking range, he starts to jog toward the emergency exit.

The sound of ripping paper puts Logan's attention back on the other guy. "John had a run in with Rogue yesterday," he says, showing off his artist's rendition.

Cartoon Marie – her white streaks, intense eyes, and curves exaggerated for effect – has a sweaty, teary Pyro up against a wall by the throat. A cigar hangs from her bee-stung lips, inches from his nose. The caption reads: "Treat her like a lady."

Amused eyebrow cocked, Logan folds up the paper and puts it in the pocket of the sweatshirt. She'll get a kick out of it when he gives it to her later.

Definitely explains some things. First Cyclops, now Pyro. Marie may be better for Logan's reputation as a badass than he is. Gonna have to rectify that.

The opening notes of _Sports Center_ catches his interest.

"You."

"Pete Rasputin – Colossus."

"Yeah, good meet. I'm gonna need that TV."

Logan puts Colossus to good use hauling the forty-inch down the hall and setting it up in the room he's staying in.

A few minutes later, Pyro shows up with an obvious bulge under his shirt. "I brought us the snacks, too."

Logan takes the clanking sack from him and shoves him out the door.

Colossus walks out with no fuss. See? It's the scrawny ones who are the real dumbasses.

On the dresser he dragged over to the bed, Logan sets himself up a not half-bad minibar. Everything he needs in reach easy reach, he props himself against the pillows with a satisfied rumble, Fat Tire and cashews in hand.

He points the clicker. NASCAR gets five minutes to start with the fires before he switches over. Commercials. Alf hunting down a housecat. When did there become an entire channel devoted to _TV Guide_?

MSNBC catches him with the headline: "Mutant on mutant violence – even more deadly to humans?" Sensationalist crap.

Next channel over, a trio of doughy white guys are lined up by split screen the better to shout over each other.

"Public safety?" the one with the fattest head blusters. "How is keeping us ignorant about the danger we're in keeping us safe? In forty-eight hours, one mutant – "

Left screen interrupts, "Be fair, there were several other mutants involved in the plot – "

"But there was one clear leader," Right screen counters. "With enough power to – "

"Exactly what I was saying," the butts in. "One mutant. One mutant escapes from a standoff with New York State police, breaks into the most top-security prison in the country, and takes over the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of our nation's freedom – And then nothing!"

"Because nothing happened. Whatever his diabolical plan, it was a dud," Lefty says.

Righty frowns deeply. "Innocent people still lost their lives. Possibly a young girl – "

"'Possibly,'" middle fathead enunciates. "We're left asking why. For what purpose? It's been days. Where's the explanation the public deserves? All we have are unfounded – "

Logan flips forward to CNN. Hank McCoy and some Dr. Kavita Rao sit at a desk with a bearded anchor called Wolf Blitzer. Give it five years and a name like that'll probably get him arrested on suspicion of being a mutant.

"While I hugely respect Dr. McCoy's insights into the mutant condition, as he himself is a carrier of the mutant gene…"

McCoy coolly adjusts his glasses at that backhanded strike.

"…from a purely genetic point of view the mutant gene is ticking time bomb. Scientifically, the mutant gene is directly responsible for an increase in children born with gross physical deformities and the skyrocketing rate of infant mortality all over the world."

"'Skyrocketing' is a bit strong, and I would hasten to add that infanticide has everything to do with those ever-increasing numbers. Socially speaking, a lack of understanding and compassion is more to blame for these unfortunate crimes and the 'grossness' of these 'deformities' than the mutant gene itself."

When Rao doesn't have an immediate response, Wolf brings the discussion around. "If we could, for a moment, get back to the question of the day. Is it possible that this machine – what some are calling a 'doomsday device' – could have triggered genetic mutation in ordinary people? Admissions from the terrorist suspect himself have led investigators to this conclusion, but analysis of the machine's wreckage has yielded little information."

"Frankly, I believe that's because there is no scientific way that a machine such as that could have worked. The mutant gene is no more something that can be artificially created than it is something contagious."

Bull and shit. No room for truth in politics, even from the supposed good guys.

Logan uncaps the Captain to pour himself a stronger drink.

Quick channel flicks until he finally gets to the sports. Baseball. Lot of guys past their prime standing around in stupid pants spitting into the dirt. Not to mention, game itself is slow. Still, boredom suits the shape he's in, so he leaves it on.

He doesn't know what inning or how many drinks he passed out in, but it's ESPN Classics by the time a persistent knock rouses him.

"What?" he calls out roughly, muting the TV.

Storm comes in carrying a not at all unwelcome tray of not food. "Evening, Logan. You slept through dinner, and Jean said you should eat."

Logan scrubs a hand over his face, indicating with the other for her to put the tray down next to the booze.

"Where did all this contraband come from?"

"Gods of necessity."

She frowns, her mind clearly compiling a list of the most likely suspects among her blessed students.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure there's not a drop left to corrupt any minors."

There's a quarter inch of rum at the bottom of the bottle Storm taps. "Well on your way, I see."

Logan pulls the tray of pasta and dessert on to his lap. "Call it a lifelong dedication to the best interests of the youth."

"Interesting you should say that."

His fork slows. Storm's got her hands clasped in front of her and her back is straight as an arrow. A serious-discussion-eminent pose if he's ever seen one. Best interest of the youth – one guess who this is going to be about. It doesn't surprise him that Jean and her were clucking to each other like a couple of hens.

"This is a year-round school. We operate on a quarter system separated by breaks for the ease of matriculating new students. Classes will be starting again soon."

Logan nods seriously. "I know what you're gettin' at, and I agree. I owe myself that GED."

Storm will not let herself laugh. "Do you think this is a conversation any teacher wants to be having?"

Discomfort needles him. "Look, you're real far ahead of yourself. And you're talkin' to the wrong guy. I don't make anybody's choices for 'em. If it were my choice, she wouldn't be this close to bein' thrown to the lions."

"I don't care much for the politics of it myself," Storm admits. She steps backward toward the door. "I know I don't know you very well, or Rogue, and it's not my place…to interfere. But you didn't see her after. It was heartbreaking. The amount of trauma she's been through doesn't heal overnight. She needs your friendship, but she also needs to be here. And you need to know that."

Piece spoken, Storm leaves silently.

Logan twirls his fork, then lets it clank against the plate. Hell. He does know that. But it serves him right for trying to take Marie's recovery at face value.

* * *

Digital clock reads nine-fifteen. He leans over to pick up the portable phone. The number is in the pocket with the drawing. Now, to dial out…9-1 – Another 1'd get the police out. He hangs up and tries again. He gets it on the fourth attempt.

"Good timing, sugar," Marie answers. "Just got out of the shower."

"How was it?"

He opened himself up for a double-entendre, but she doesn't take the bait. A sigh and a mattress flop.

"Long. Anxious. They watched the tapes in private. They were both still crying when they came out. I gave them Carol's tags. You know what they did?" She sounds on the verge of tears herself. "They hugged me. They – They saw it as Carol reaching out to help me escape. You know, her last heroic act. I n-never thought of it that way."

She pauses to get a hold of herself. Long, shaky breaths.

"They're so different from my parents. The way they see the good in things. My momma's too scared of…I don't know…life. Daddy, he cares how things look more than how they are. Everybody had practically forgotten I was adopted, until I turned out to be a mutant and he started reminding people."

Marie snorts. He can hear her stand up and start to pace. It's what he would do, if he had the energy.

"Adopted. When I was fifteen, my best friend and I got caught at a dance with wine coolers. She had a divorced mother, but what was my excuse? Ah…adopted. Explains everything. Never mind that I was three and don't remember anything about it. 'Course, now there's the family legacy of teenage runaway syndrome, so who knows? Apparently, she left me with her father – I found this out at Southaven – Anyway, he ditched me. Guess I was beat up and everything."

Logan simply listens, knuckles against his teeth.

"If they hadn't had all the medical records, I wouldn't believe it. It feels like it happened to someone else. Less than that. I have those kinds of memories. This feels...like a _Lifetime_ movie I wish I never watched. It doesn't make up any part of who I am."

"You're right, it don't. It ain't written down anywhere that you gotta be the sum of what other people've done to you. Not even close."

"My psychiatrist at Southaven thought my repressed memories were what made my mutation turn out they way it did."

"What d'you think?"

"I want to think she's full of shit. She made me feel so…powerless." With an aggravated noise, she throws herself back on the bed. "You know what? Screw her. I like the Professor's take better – He's all, 'I think, therefore I am.' I can work with that."

"Good for you, kid. You make up your own mind."

"That supposed to be a pun?" A hint of a smile breaks through. "It's what I'm gonna be working toward. I want to maybe try meditation again. Know any yogis with a lot of free them on their hands? I promise not to push you anymore."

"Promise goes double for me."

There's silence for a little while, but it's a comfortable one. He pours himself a drink and listens to her breathe.

"I'm so exhausted," she says. "How are you feeling?"

"My bones ache. I think this is what old feels like."

Marie chuckles throatily. It's a real appealing sound.

Logan's appetite is back, so he starts on his dinner. "How's the food where you are?"

"Five-star. We had dinner on the roof tonight. I think that's something my restaurant needs. Rooftop seating."

"I bet it'd up your insurance premiums."

"That's a sound business mind you've go there." He hears her switch on the television. "_TV Guide_ said _Dirty Dancing _would be on TNT tonight."

"Can't believe somebody actually uses that channel." Logan turns to TNT but keeps it mute. He can hear the movie well enough from her end, and he doesn't need One-Eye walking by recognizing the music. And he would.

"Oh, it's the end. Best part anyway. Here it comes, here it comes – 'Nobody puts baby in a corner.' Yes. So sexy. "

Tight pants pulls the girl up on stage to deliver a list of things she taught him just by be willing to sleep with him.

"I'm still wonderin' if he taught her to do those 'lifts,'" Logan comments.

"Are you actually watching this with me?"

"No," he lies, and hits the recall button one too many times. He's back on CNN, and Southaven Mutant Treatment Clinic is splashed across the screen, along with images of the blonde Air Force Captain he knows a lot of half-truths about. A familiar blue face has him turning the volume up. "The real Sheryl Maxwell is on the news right now talkin' about Southaven."

"I know. I hid up in my room while they did the interview."

"That mean you're not gonna testify?"

"I don't know. I want to, in a way. But…You know they're saying I died up there? It might be better to keep it that way, or at least…vague."

The double sound of CNN plays as they both watch the interview. Nothing too in-depth or controversial – Indecent experiments and lots of evidence. Tomorrow the defense will start in with the attacks.

"Do you think there's an evolutionary advantage to blue skin? On non-psycho bitches, it's pretty…What the – "

At the bottom of the screen, "Breaking news: Kidnapped Senator Robert Kelly found alive."

"That's not possible! Unless – Blue psycho bitches." She lays back heavily. "I thought you gutted her."

"Not well enough."

"Mystique is so twisted. You know she tried to tell me she wanted to be my mentor? And – Well, you know."

Yeah, he knows. That mocking tone – "I kissed her goodbye for you." His claws itch under his skin just remembering it.

"…God. I don't even have the capacity to think about this." Marie switches back to her movie.

He follows suit. There's a big dance number going on.

"You, uh, you remember everything I remember. From the other night?"

"A lot of it. I remember you were thinkin' about me."

The smugness is already there. She's going to be hell to live with.

He doesn't bother taking a sip of his drink, because he knows whatever's coming out of her mouth next is going to make him spit it out. "So?"

"So…" Her drawl thickens considerably. "Yes, Logan…Logan, I will marry you!"

Instead of doing a spit-take, he sloshes his drink on the blankets and sputters on air.

Her throaty laugh is back full-force. "Smooth your mutton chops, sugar. I'm a good Southern girl. We don't get married until we're knocked up. And even then it's shotgun traditional."

Christ. "Yeah, yeah, keep cacklin'," he grouses, although the image it evokes of the Professor rolling up to him, pointing a sawed-off double barrel all dignified is pretty damn funny.

She quiets down to watch the final scene play out.

"This it? Your perfect happy ending?"

"I'm not saying they go out and get a mortgage, but, yeah, they have an understanding."

That makes him feel better. Seems like they have one of those already.

Logan, always the masochist, goes back to the news. This time he sits forward to enjoy it. "CNN's estimatin' all the damages done to the Statue of Liberty." He whistles under his breath. "Millions."

"Shouldn't that kind of vandalism constitute treason? Don't you feel even a little bad?"

"Darlin', I'm Canadian."

Her answering giggles are arrested suddenly by a voracious yawn. "Exhausted," she repeats. "But I almost don't want to sleep. I've started to dream again. Nightmares, mainly."

"I'm sorry, kid. I never meant to do that to you."

"It's not just you. I mean, it's probably a good thing in disguise," she amends, clearly realizing reminding him about the sheer volume of horrors going on in her head isn't a comfort. "Like a more natural coping mechanism." Marie yawns again. "I have a different kinda nightmare for you – I might've flirted a little with Cyclops, and he might've blamed it on the you inside my head. So…"

"You better be damn well kiddin' me."

"'Fraid not. Sweet dreams, sugar. See to you tomorrow."

And she hangs up, leaving him with the severest case of mood whiplash he's ever felt. How that woman can go from crying one minute to laughing the next, being all gushy romantic over a stupid movie and then turn around to bust his balls…

Nothing to do but finish his drink. Won't be boring, whatever their understanding eventually leads to, or even the getting there part. That's a fact he's counting on.

Logan sleeps well into late morning, but when he does wake up he's shaken the last of his debility. With that energy, he takes the longest shower of his life.

So long, in fact, that when he steps out of the steam-filled bathroom, he's missed Marie coming and going. On the nightstand, there's a six-inch plastic Lady Liberty souvenir someone took a pocket knife to – holes in her face, part of her crown sawed off, flame part of the torch gone.

The note Marie propped on it reads, "A monument to the lengths you went to. Hope you love it. P.S., The Professor wants to see you in the lower levels. I'll be in the rec room when you leave."

Not only has she returned is hiking pack, she's repacked it for him. New cigars and Pyro's lighter stick out the top.

Hell. He expected a conversation, at least. Maybe some yelling. Waterworks as a worst case scenario. Instead, she's practically booting him out. He his to chalk it up to her knowing him even better than he knows himself, otherwise he might actually be offended.

Bag feels heavier than he would've packed, but he just switches the souvenir for the cigars and zips up the top.

Xavier meets him at the door to the room the X-Men use to poorly plan their vigilante operations.

Logan just nods at the Professor's greeting. Restlessness itches at him, so he leans against the holographic machine drawing a map with magnets.

"There's an abandoned military compound at Alkali Lake in the Canadian Rockies close to where we found you."

He recognizes the area. It's not hard to commit the general direction from his cabin to memory.

"There's not much left, but you might find some answers."

If there's anything there, he will find it. It's more than he's had to go on in fifteen years. And he needs answers to his past more than ever, now that he wants to have a future.

"Thank you."

"Are you going to say goodbye to them?"

Them? They'll get along just fine without him. There's only one goodbye that counts, and she's upstairs waiting.

"You're always welcome here," Xavier makes clear. "And on the X-Men."

Logan shrugs, surprising himself with even that level of commitment. "I'll let you know what I find."

Out of the elevator, he trains his ears on the rec room.

More news he wouldn't have given more than a passing thought to a month ago: "The Mutant Registration Act lost it's main proponent today in the dramatic reversal of Senator Robert Kelly, who until this time had provided the loudest voice in the cry for mutant registration."

And there it is. The reason McCoy and the rest of the politicians are going to let this one slide. Jean, Cyclops, and Storm seem surprised but not by much. It makes Logan even more relieved Marie came back here instead of letting herself get drawn into the game. For now at least.

"In a related story, the body of Senator Robert Kelly's longtime aide Henry Gyrich was found today…"

She's playing foosball. Her and Pyro seem to have made up, they're teamed up against the one-pawed mouse and the boyfriend. Marie looks good, and he doesn't just mean the low-cut top. She's looking happy and put together and in a decent place.

"…Coroner's reports seem to indicate that Mr. Gyrich was mauled by a bear – "

She's looking right at him.

He nods, indicating that she should meet him outside, and leaves the mansion.

She catches him between doors. "Hey."

The expression on her on her face, the light in her eyes. It all comes flooding back, like a punch to the gut. He could've lost everything.

"You runnin' again?" Marie hangs onto the doorframe a moment before sauntering up to him.

Logan adjusts the strap he's holding higher on his shoulder. What kind of question is that when she packed him up herself? "Not really." He meant it to come out sardonic. What is this? Nerves? Hell. "I have some things to take care of up north."

His hand reaches out to touch her before he quite gives it permission. He comes up short, lightly stroking the shock of white in her hair.

"I kinda like it."

She's turned a scar into a badge of honor. That's his girl.

His protectiveness doesn't fill him with shame anymore, but it does make it hard to look her in the eye.

"I don't want you to go – "

Logan's ready for that. He unclips the chain around his neck, and picks up her gloved hand. He closes her fist around the dog tag curled into her cupped palm. "I'll be back for this." Real soon. He holds her gaze, lets her see that he means it.

Marie's pleased, knowing grin warms his back as he steps outside.

Passing the fountain, he takes a moment to place a well-deserved cigar between his teeth. He did good back there. Didn't come on too strong, didn't have to explain himself. This understanding thing, it's minimalist, classic. Suits him.

Out of the corner of his eye, the chrome on the Harley glints in the sun. He lifts an eyebrow. That's just poor parking on Cyclops's part. And the keys are in the ignition. Might well have put a bow on it.

Logan's really getting into the feel of the ride when movement behind the trees at the far end of the lane slows him down. Someone in a green cloak waits for him against the gate.

"What d'ya think you're doing?" he demands around his cigar.

"I needed a ride." She's squinting over a lopsided smile. "Thought you might help me."

"You're ruinin' a goddamn picture perfect goodbye, kid. Why'd you let me go through all that if you were just gonna try to invite yourself along?"

"'I don't want you to go – without me' is what I was gonna say. So you better rethink the word 'try,' sugar, 'cause my clothes are already in your bag. Thing is, I'm a free woman now and I've got plans that don't include being hounded by politics the rest of my life. Can't be a superhero without a secret identity."

Oh, that's fuckin' stress he doesn't need. X-Man Rogue, throwing herself right smack in the middle of trouble all the while poured into black leather…Logan shifts himself back on the bike. Yeah. Like he said. Stress.

"What about workin' with the Professor and getting' your diploma and all that?"

"Neither of us is leaving here forever. I go as far as you go, them I'm headed to Anchorage. It's spring break, and I deserve a vacation."

Marie seems to have all the angles covered. And Logan can tell by that he's-in-for-it smile, she knows it, too. There's no saying no to the girl with the plan. If he'd have recognized that fact back in Laughlin City, he would've saved himself a lot of trouble.

He gestures for her to get on the bike in front of him.

"You're letting me drive?"

"Marie, you've been drivin' since the day we met. I've just been along for the ride."

Yeah, she likes that. She settles in nice and close.

Seventeen, he has to remind himself. They've got a ways to go before they hit ready, or even figure out what ready means.

She gives him a game grin. "You know, healing factor or not, it's against the law in a lot of states not to wear helmets – "

Logan reaches past Marie to rev the engine. "Shut up and drive, darlin'. I wanna go fast."


	23. Reveiws

**DARK SIDE OF THE MOON**

_**thatcraftykid**_

**bonus track / REVEIWS**

**MONEY**

**shamrockbaby411**

Please tell me you're planning on continuing and finishing this story. I absolutely love the concept. It's so interesting. I got to this last chapter and I wanted to cry because I wanted more. PLEASE finish this story!

**CoCo82**

I like this a lot! What an awesome start. Can't wait to read more

**Danibat**

I love love LOVE this. This is made of all kinds of awesome. You built a strong foundation and threw in some wonderful characterization. I can't wait to see how you continue this in the next one. Thanks for the read!

**iLovePun**

I love Rogue! Her and Logan have an interesting relationship:) Update soon!:D

**Capt_Mackenzie**

This is so cool! I don't remember if I've reviewed previous chapters before or not, but I've certainly been enjoying this tale! (don't understand the "complete" notation, tho; how can it be finished? there's still so much story to tell! you've barely begun!)

Logan's softness & honesty w/her is nice to see, but also somehwat inexplicable. they wouldn't have the same kind of bond that the pair has in the movies; Rogue's personality is too different for that. So what's the hook here? is it just her mistreatment Southaven that's compelling him to trust her, and forming a connection b/w them - 2 abused mutants, both of them against the world sort of thing?

I hope you have a sequel in mind!

**why do they need a name anyway**

Ah I CAN'T WAIT FOR MORE!

Update soon. I love your comedic flare

**guest number 2**

"He contemplates his cigar like a favorite lover. She almost tells him to get a room..." Loved this part and the fact that even passed out, he finds her annoying. Your stories are so entertaining

**emma134**

that was really good hope you load soon

**capt_mackenzie**

oh, this is hilarious! It's funny that he doesn't like her... at all. This really is like the comics. But Logan's a decent guy, and a soft-hearted sweetie under all the snark and frustration, so it's going to be an interesting relationship that develops out of this. I know I will love tagging along to watch how these two respond to each other's complex dichotomies, and shared pain/vulnerabilities.

...and, how will Charles Xavier react to this new development? Will he keep an eye on these two w/Cerebro? Will he interfere? When will Mags catch up to them? So much potential here!

**capt_mackenzie**

and here I thought she was going to save him some grief by saving him from the fight with Sabretooth! Funny. but I guess every Rogue must have some trouble with her personalities.

**capt_mackenzie**

This is an excellent idea for a story, and so far you're fleshing it out very well. Giving Rogue a personality more like the comics was a good idea; it pairs well with Wolvie's life here, and I like seeing a strong Rogue, as opposed to a wilting one as in the 1st movie.

**Capt_Mackenzie**

I can't quite believe Logan would let himself go to sleep, with her in control - Mr. "I trust no one." And yet... it works. This pairing is fabulous! Keep going! I'm so excited at finding a good story!

**Yasona Black**

I'm loving this story. It's nicely done. One thing though, at the end of chapter three you used "loosing" instead of "losing". Other than that it was very enjoyable. :)

**Mizuki1988**

wow, great :) I like Rogue's spark and how she's no longer this scared little kid but more of Logan's equal - maybe that way their interactions will evolve more into the direction of romance rather than this strange relationship they have going on in the movies :)

I've no idea why you get so few reviews though...

**Mizuki1988**

Wow, this story is brilliant so far - and I can't wait to see more of it! :) I'm adding you to my alerts :)

**guest**

Nice, very good. I like the way you write, how you describe characters thoughts and things happening around them. I will be interested to see how this continues.

**ANY COLOR YOU LIKE**

**Raina Meldamiriel**

awww i cant wait for more ^^ i love this story i can't wait to see how your gonna devlope the story. please update again soon xxx

**amba gurl**

hey r u going to update soon? this is a really good story!

**CaptMacKenzie**

Fascinating. You are just so talented at making these characters so INTERESTING! Their dialogue & reactions are somehow never something I quite expect, yet they fit the personalities to a "T" and certainly keep me enthralled! I'm under your spell every time you post.

It's hard to write a much-loved, much-overwritten couple and make it feel new, or give it your own, very personal flair; you have succeeded.

I'm only disappointed that you take so long to add to this story. It's too engaging to let lie. And what happened to the rest? Wasn't there a third part to this series? Where did it go? Did you delete some posted chapters?

**JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo**

Having only just found this fic, after it was added to the 'I Heart Rogan' community, I'm in love.

Logan is in character, and his thoughts are hilarious, especially when he's admiring her arse...LOL

And had to laugh at the little argument at the end, men and sports...huh?

**SapphireMind**

interesting concept, I can't wait to see more.

**Danibat**

God I love this story so much. I was very excited to see another chapter.

**Princesakarlita411**

awesome

**Danibat**

This is just as great as I thought it would be. A fabulous start to much anticipated continuation. I'm a great believer in reviewing throughly the farther I get into a story in progress. So you'll be sure to hear more from me as I follow a long. Be sure to let me know if you need any help with nudges or ideas. I'd like to help any way I can(if you need any at all, cause you're doing wonderful without any, that's for sure!). Thanks for the read!

**ESP**

this is utterly amazing. please continue

**dancinqt21**

Love the connection between Rogue and Logan when they can't really stand each other, but for some reason or another they care about each other- its so cute.

After reading the second installment to the series, I realized why your pen name sounded familiar. You made an amazing ROGAN vid "Run Devil Run" like a year ago. The editting was so cool. When I saw it, I thought it should be turned into a fic, how lucky that the vid was formed by such a great writer *hint hint*.

Can't wait for more ;)

**FreeBorn**

I read the first section of this story last night, and only just thought now to check your profile and see if you'd done any more X-men/Wolverine writing. Thank the lord you have, by the way. Your characterizations are hilarious, but spot-on. You manage to make Wolverine internally tortured, kinda masochistic, and gruff without it being too cliche or expected, and your written-Rogue is by far my favorite I've ever encountered on FF. Logan and Rogue's interactions and relationship dynamic are subtle, but still poignant. And lots of other fluffy things, too. I can't wait for further chapters on this story :}

**Lucy**

I love what you've done with Marie's character and the way the relationship is developing. Hope you'll keep writing :)

**Tarafina**

One word for you - AMAZING!

**rocks and glass**

This is very good. You are a good writer and I really really like your characterizations here. Logan especially is well done, his general confusion/surprise/shocked-ness with the continuing unexpected, and his swinging between sort of attraction and sheer annoyance and protectiveness is brilliant because it builds him in a 3D way that is often lacking in other stories. That's a very in-eloquent compliment, mostly because I can't pin down in a few words what it is that you are doing with the characters (which is a good thing).

Basically I think the whole thing, and it's predecessor, is great and look forward to reading more from what promises to be an interesting plot/story.

**iLovePun**

I read your last story and I'm glad you're continuing! Update soon! I wanna know what happens with them.

**lilaclove**

Hey! I am absolutely loving this. I read the first one and adored it, so I moved onto this one. Please continue soon. Good luck and happy writing!

**Capt_Mackenzie**

This is adorable. Loved it, from word one!

**SPEAK TO ME, BREATHE**

**at best-functioning morons**

Your writing is stunningly beautiful...I am sorry if that is really weird for me to say that, but it's true. Wolverine/Logan is one of my favorite characters ever created, and you have this way of writing from his pers[ective that is just so DEEP...you have captured him perfectly. I love the way you followed the original plot line of the movie, but added so much more. The additions of characters not in the movies but in the comic books, like Jubilee, is really great.

I also really appreciate how neat and tidy your writing is. A lot of authors on this site clearly don't go to the trouble of proofreading their work, but it is obvious that your check your spelling and grammer etc. It makes your story that much better to read. I truly enjoyed this story, keep on writing! :-) Job well done.

**Insomniactionjackson**

I originally followed this on the WR archive. I saw this recently pop up on here and decided to read the series yet again (think I am going on 4x now). Long story short, this is one of the best series I have read (and I've been writing, but mostly reading fan fic for over 10 years). Your character development and depth is compelling. I was primarily an X series comic reader and like you, thought the movies portrayed Rogue as a weak, fragile, naive child. Nothing like the tough, smart-mouthed, jaded, yet kind hearted character from the pages of the comics. You have done a wonderful job trying wedding the two to create a Rogue more true to the comics that still is recognizable to an audience that only knows of her from the movie.

Although I know a series of this length can be taxing and it is not always possible to complete such a work (especially when you have more than one series), I hope you plan to continue working on the 4th installment, Great Gig in the Sky.

**KafeiDetour**

Excellent story. I greatly enjoyed reading it. Any hope for a sequel?

_Note how many of these reviews are actually annoyed pleas for me to get __off/__on my ass and write already. My sincere apologies for being such a ship-tease. _


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